


Where Have All The Heroes Gone And Where Are All The Gods?

by Anthemyst



Series: Generations Past and Future [5]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: F/M, Gabriel Is Not Hawkmoth, Gen, Next Generation, Rating for language and basically nothing else, Set about 30 years after the events of the show
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-14
Updated: 2018-04-07
Packaged: 2018-08-08 15:28:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 51
Words: 166,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7763221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anthemyst/pseuds/Anthemyst
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On their fourteenth birthday, the Agreste triplets' world is turned upside down. Their government has been overthrown, their city taken, and superheroes all over Europe have suddenly and mysteriously vanished-including, to their shock, their parents. They'll need to work together, and become the heroes Paris needs, if they're going to save both their parents and their country.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Danielle

August 28, 2044

Danielle Agreste awoke on her fourteenth birthday to a world drastically worse than the one she’d gone to sleep in, but she didn't realize it at first. Her first thought, upon waking, was merely confusion that her mother hadn't excitedly woken her up already. Her mother worried, for some reason, about all three of her children having to share a single birthday, and she had a tendency to overcompensate by going completely nuts with the day every year. Usually Dani didn’t like to be woken early, but she never minded on this day.

Yawning, Dani looked across the room at her sister, Emma. Emma was awake, no surprise there. But she was staring wordlessly at her phone in the dark, which wasn't like her. Usually when Dani did that, she'd get a lecture from her sister about the dangers of eye strain, or something like that. “What are you watching?” Dani asked. Emma jumped visibly.

“Oh,” she said. “You’re awake.”

“What are you watching?” Dani repeated.

“The world go to hell in a fucking hand-basket,” Emma said in a dull monotone. She turned back to her screen as Dani’s eyes widened. Emma _never_ swore.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Dani got up to look at her sister’s phone. “What's going on?”

“Oh, where to begin,” Emma sighed. “Well, the government’s been overthrown. Not just ours, either, the governments of at least ten neighboring countries. Spain, Portugal, the UK, us, Germany-I forget the rest, but don’t worry, they’ll replay which ones soon. All major cities are currently occupied by a magically enhanced private militaristic force calling itself The Order. They’ve got control of the news, too.”

Dani grabbed her sister’s phone and stared at the scrolling news in disbelief.

“And they've got some giant force-field up,” Emma continued. “No one from the outside can get in, so we won't be saved by America or China or Russia or anybody like that. Oh, and they claim they've “neutralized” all superheroes inside the perimeter. Which is a pretty bold claim, but Ladybug and Chat Noir haven't shown up yet, so it's probably legit.”

Dani walked over to their bedroom’s only window and lifted the shade. “The roads are a mess,” she said. “And… is that a _tank_?”

“Probably,” Emma said, not looking up.

“This is _crazy_ , Emma. Things like this don't just happen literally overnight.”

“It's certainly rare,” Emma said, “but historically speaking it's not completely unprecedented.”

Dani sighed. “What did Mom and Dad have to say about all this?”

Emma shrugged. “They're not home. I assumed they went out early for party stuff and got caught in all the chaos.”

Dani glanced out the window again. “It might be hours before they get back,” she said. “I'm gonna wake Louis up and fill him in.”

 

* * *

 

“Oh, _fuck_ ,” Louis said, staring at the news in horror. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, this is bad.”

“Yeah, no kidding,” Dani said.

“No. No, you don't get how bad this is,” Louis said, sinking into a chair and grabbing his head in his hands. He was starting to hyperventilate.

“Do you think we’re idiots?” Dani asked, starting to get mad. “What’s not to get? What is there to miss about how terrible this is?”

“What are we going to do?” Louis asked, not answering his sister. His breathing was continuing to get faster, and his sisters exchanged a worried look over his head.

“I… I don't think we can _do_ anything, Louis,” Emma said gently. “We should just stay here and wait for Mom and Dad to get back.”

“Mom and Dad aren’t _coming_ back.” He looked up at his sisters, his face white as a sheet. “There’s something I never told you guys,” he said. “Mom and Dad are Ladybug and Chat Noir.”

For about twenty seconds, his sisters stared at him as though he were crazy. Then Dani punched his arm. “That’s not funny,” she said, annoyed. “Not right now, not with everything that’s going on.”

“ _Ow_. No, it isn’t funny. It’s the truth.”

“I think I’d be able to tell if my parents were superheroes,” Dani said, looking at her sister. “Right, Emma?” Emma was now staring into the middle distance, seemingly lost in thought. Dani waved a hand in front of her sister’s face. “Earth to Emma,” she said. Emma blinked and looked at Dani.

“Dani,” she said, putting a hand on her sister’s shoulder, “this explains _everything_. Or, well, at least it explains a lot.”

“What? No it doesn’t. What’s there to explain?”

“Well, why Mom and Dad aren’t home right now for starters-”

“They’re just _out_ , they’re not-”

“And why they’re so flaky sometimes, and those stupid vague “business trips” they’re always taking-”

“They’re not _always_ taking them,” Dani said. “They go on maybe one a year.”

“But why would they go on any, Dani? Dad’s a public school teacher and Mom’s a fashion designer! Their jobs don’t overlap at _all_. And they never say what they’re for, or where they’re going, and they’re always super last-minute. And, look, I don’t remember all of them but I’m pretty sure the last one coincided with Ladybug and Chat Noir taking care of that weird earthquake thing in Argentina.”

“That… that _could_ be just a coincidence…” Dani’s temper was starting to die down, and a profound nervousness was taking its place. As a general rule, Danielle Agreste preferred to be angry.

“ _And_ it would explain why nobody answers any goddamn questions in this family,” Emma said, now starting to get uncharacteristically worked up. “Every third question I ask, I hear “It’s a long story, sweetie” and then some nearby adult abruptly changes the subject. I swear to God, it should be printed in Latin on the Agreste family crest. Like… like, take Grandma. Have you ever asked Dad about when she went missing?”

“No, I-”

“Well, I did once. “Oh, that’s a long story, honey.” His mother went missing for four years, everybody thought she was _dead_ , and then Ladybug and Chat Noir out of nowhere rescue her on the other side of the _world_ , and Dad doesn’t have _one_ thing to say about it?”

Dani took a deep breath, let it out, and turned back to her brother. “Did Mom actually _say_ she was Ladybug?” she asked.

“Well, not in so many words-”

“There, see? It’s just Louis being over-imaginative again.”

“-but she certainly didn’t deny it when I asked. She just said it was really really important I never talk about it to anyone, and she’d tell all three of us everything when we were sixteen.”

“Sixteen?” Emma asked, annoyed. “She was going to wait two more _years_ before telling us anything?”

“When was this?” Dani asked. Louis shrugged.

“I don’t know, eight, nine years ago?” His sisters gaped at him.

“You’ve known that long?” Dani asked.

“Well...I mean, no, I’ve known _much_ longer than that, it’s just that that’s when I was old enough to, you know, realize that nobody was talking about it and actually think to ask why. Honestly for years I thought we all knew and everybody just knew not to bring it up, but the older I got the more obvious it was that everyone else in this city is just, like, completely clueless about it.”

“But...but how did you know?”

Louis threw his hands up in frustration. “I don’t know,” he snapped, “how do you know it’s Mom and not a mysterious stranger when she wears a hat you’ve never seen before?”

“That’s not-okay, right, that does it.” Dani pulled out her phone. “We’re ending this crazy speculation right now. I’m calling Mom. One of you call Dad. One of them is bound to answer, you’ll see.” Frowning, Emma grabbed her phone and selected her father’s number from the menu. Emma and Dani both lifted their phones to their ears expectantly. A few seconds later, they could hear their parents’ cell phones, both ringing slightly out of sync with one another, from their bedroom a few doors away. All three siblings went pale.

“Well that’s not good,” Emma said. She hung up and headed for the bedroom door, her siblings trailing close behind her.

Emma slowly opened the door to the bedroom, and all three of them peered inside at once. There was absolutely no sign that their parents had left, except for the fact that they weren’t there. Their father’s glasses were still on the nightside table, their mother’s purse was thrown over a chair, their cell phones were plugged into their chargers. The sheets of the bed were rumpled, but not thrown aside.

“Is it just me,” Louis whispered, “or does it look like they literally vanished into thin air in the middle of the night?”

“No, not just you-what’s that on Mom’s pillow?” Dani asked. Louis took a step inside, then stopped and looked around.

“It’s her earrings,” he said.

“No, Mom’s earrings are black and those are-” Dani stopped mid-sentence as she recognized what she was looking at. “Oh my God,” she whispered.

“I guess whatever spirited them away wasn’t strong enough to grab a Miraculous?” Louis guessed. Spotting a box of tissues, he grabbed two and approached the bed. “Don’t touch these,” he said. “For some reason I have a strong feeling it would be a bad idea for anyone other than Mom to pick these up.” Using one of the tissues, he scooped the earrings up and twisted the tissue around them, then shoved them in his pocket. “Do either of you see the ring? Oh, here it is.” Leaning over to his father’s side of the bed, he grabbed the iconic Chat Noir ring with the second tissue and showed it to his sisters before putting it in his pocket with the earrings.

“You’re just going to carry those wildly powerful artifacts around all crumpled up like that?” Dani asked, indignant.

“Nah, I’ll find somewhere safe for them.” Louis frowned. “Now that I think of it, I’m kind of surprised an armed guard hasn’t, like, shown up to take us into custody and search the house for these.”

“Maybe they don’t know who Mom and Dad are yet?” Emma guessed. “I mean, in real life.”

“Well, they’re going to figure it out soon, I bet,” Louis said. His initial panic seemed to have mostly abated, but he still looked pale. “We should probably lock the front door, just in case.”

Dani raised an eyebrow. “In case of an armed guard? I don’t think a locked door is going to stop them.”

“Well, it might give us enough time to run out the back, anyway,” Louis said. “It can’t hurt.”

The three of them headed downstairs, and Louis crossed the room to the front door and bolted it shut. All three were pointedly trying not to look at all the decorations their mother had obviously stayed up late putting up the night before. Something about them seemed almost offensive, like they were taunting the triplets, ghosts of a carefree life that was clearly over.

“Hang on,” Emma said. “What are those?” She pointed to three small black boxes on the countertop, ornately decorated and each with a bow and a tag. Dani was closer; she leaned over and looked at each tag. “They’re all unsigned,” she reported. She read each one out loud.

 

_For Danielle, to be used wisely in the coming trials_

_For Louis, to be used wisely in the coming trials_

_For Emma, to be used wisely in the coming trials_


	2. Adele Agreste

Adele Dumas Agreste grabbed her husband of nearly fifty years, whom she loved with all her heart, and forcibly shoved him behind a dumpster. “Duck!” she hissed, as she quickly joined him. They waited, crouched and silent, for a few moments before they heard the footsteps of the patrol that Adele had sensed just in time. Long ago, in what felt like an entirely different lifetime, Adele had held the Butterfly Miraculous. Among many other things, it had granted her the ability to sense the emotions, and thus the presence, of others. Though she no longer held it, some shadow of her empathic ability remained. It wasn’t anything close to what it had once been, but it was good enough to avoid the patrols currently marching all over Paris.

Once the footsteps had faded, Gabriel Agreste stood and started calmly brushing trash off his incredibly well-tailored suit. “You enjoyed that,” he accused his wife.

“I told you to dress more sensibly for this, Gabriel, it’s not my fault you didn’t listen.”

“This is the most casual suit I own.”

They continued on, sticking to back alleys and side roads whenever possible, making their way across Paris. It was slow going-the city was crawling with occupying forces. They’d started over an hour ago, but they still had a ways to go.

Three blocks later, Adele grabbed Gabriel again, this time right before he stepped into the street, and pushed him up against the wall. Again, they waited silently for the footsteps to come and go. “You _are_ enjoying this,” Gabriel said again, as they stood and continued on.

“Gabriel, our son is missing, along with every other superhero in Europe as far as we can tell. Our city has been captured. We’re on our way to reclaim a life we thought we’d peacefully left behind thirty years ago, so we can fight and defend, because things are looking incredibly desperate. If there is _anything_ I have learned in my life, it’s that in situations like these you find the joy in the little things whenever possible, because those moments are certain to be few and far between.”

“Little things like throwing your seventy-four year old husband around?” In response, Adele grabbed Gabriel’s hand and laced her fingers with his.

“What if he’s gone, too? With the others?” Gabriel whispered a few blocks later. Adele shrugged.

“We know where he keeps them, and I remember the code. I think. We’ll get them back either way.”

 

* * *

 

In another hour, they’d arrived. The Guardian’s place was on a main road, so they had to be extra careful getting to the front door, but fortunately it was unlocked and they were soon inside. “Fu?” Adele called as they walked up the stairs. There was no answer. Cautiously, they made their way to the room where he kept the Miraculouses.

“I don’t think I’ve been back here in two decades,” Adele whispered, looking around.

“Nor I,” her husband replied. “But I remember-where is it?” Startled, Adele followed his gaze.

The room was virtually unchanged, undisturbed. There was only one difference-the phonograph, in which the Guardian secretly kept all non-active Miraculouses, was missing.

“What the…” Adele crossed the room quickly. “There’s a letter addressed to us here,” she said, holding up an envelope with _Gabriel & Adele_ written upon it. She opened it as her husband joined her. “It says ‘Look after the triplets’,” she read aloud. She turned the paper over, but nothing else was written on it. Then she re-examined the envelope, shaking it upside down.

“I doubt there’s anything else,” Gabriel said. “He does have a tendency to become somewhat… concise, in an emergency.”

“But what does it even _mean_?”

“I assume he’s talking about Adrien’s-”

“Yes, Gabriel, I know _which_ triplets he’s talking about,” Adele said, annoyed. “But why leave a note like this, after everything that’s happened? Obviously we’ll be looking after them! But this doesn’t explain _anything_. Where are our Miraculouses, what are we supposed to do about everything else? Just sit around and wait? You don’t think the Guardian’s gone off to handle this himself, do you?”

“That’s not at all his style,” Gabriel pointed out. “Besides, he’s over two hundred. He’d stopped transforming when _we_ were young.”

Adele groaned and crumpled up the note and envelope in frustration, and chucked it across the room. “This makes no sense,” she complained.

“Nothing today has,” Gabriel said, putting an arm around his wife. She sighed and leaned against him.

“Well… I guess we’re headed to Adrien’s place,” she said. “That was going to be our next stop anyway, I suppose.”

“We thought I’d have the Peacock Miraculous back by now, and the trip would only take an instant. Getting to our son’s place from here on foot is going to take even longer than this trip.”

Adele straightened up and headed for the door. “Then I guess we’d better get started.”


	3. Louis

2033 

 

“And who is this, Louis?” Marinette asked, putting another picture in front of her toddler son.

“Mama!” he shouted happily.

“Good!” She put a small piece of candy in front of him, which he ate instantly, and put another picture down. “And who is _this_?”

“Mama!” he said again, reaching for another piece of candy.

“ _No_ ,” Marinette said firmly, pointing at the photo. “This is _Ladybug_. Say ‘Ladybug’, Louis.”

“Ladybug.”

“Who is this?”

“Ladybug.”

“Good!” She put the second piece of candy in front of her son, then reached for another one of the dozens of pictures she’d printed out.

An hour later, her husband poked his head into the room. “I’m back. How’s it going?”

“Who’s this?” Marinette was asking for the umpteenth time.

“Cha Na.”

“Close enough, sweetie.” She looked over at her husband. “Well, he’s getting them right almost all the time now. I think I’ll stick it out for another hour, though, just to be safe. And maybe go again in a week.” She put another picture down, which Louis correctly identified as Mama, and she gave him another piece of candy. “How did this happen?” she asked her husband. “It’s just him, the girls don’t suspect a thing. Did Fu have any ideas?”

Adrien rolled his eyes. “I’m 95% sure he knows exactly what’s going on, but he was very vague when I explained it to him and asked about it. I think we’re on our own here.”

Louis looked up and pointed at his father. “Papa!” he shouted. Then he looked at his mother expectantly. Sighing, she gave him another piece of candy.

 

2044 

 

“I don’t know if we should open those,” Louis said, looking at the three black boxes. “They look… I mean, I guess they don’t look _dangerous_ , but there’s something insanely powerful inside.”

“Okay, that’s it,” Dani said, “I am officially fed up with you.”

“What? What did I do?”

“Where is all this _coming_ from? You suddenly, mysteriously, know all this stuff, like that there’s something powerful inside those boxes, or that we shouldn’t touch Mom and Dad’s Miraculouses, or, oh yeah, the fact that Mom and Dad _have_ Miraculouses because they’re _superheroes_?”

Louis rolled his eyes. “You’re mad at me about that? What, did I break some kind of Triplet Code or something?”

“Yes. Yes, I would say that that’s exactly what you did, now that you mention it. We are definitely supposed to be telling each other everything. Emma and I don’t keep secrets, that’s for sure.”

“You don’t know everything about me,” Emma said defensively. “Don’t drag me into this, I’m not mad at him. And I certainly don’t tell you two everything.”

Dani rolled her eyes. “I’m not talking about stuff like, ‘Oh, Henri Lavillant-Couffaine is so cute, I wonder if he knows I exist’-”

“I do _not_ -”

“I’m talking about _real_ secrets. Do you have any real secrets, Emma?”

“No,” Emma admitted.

“Right. Now that that’s settled,” Dani looked back at her box, “I’m opening mine. You two can do what you want.”

“I’m not opening that thing,” Emma said.

“Why not? Just because Louis-”

“Because they’re mysterious boxes, we have no idea who left them, we have no idea how they got here, the message on them is super creepy, and they appeared the morning our superhero parents disappeared and the city was _conquered_. Any single one of those would be a good enough reason to hold off until we know what’s going on, Danielle.”

“We’re not going to find _out_ what’s going on if we just sit around doing nothing,” Dani said, grabbing her box. “Maybe there’s some kind of clue inside.” She flipped the lid open, and her siblings both flinched instinctively. A second later, a bright flash blinded Dani and she screamed. Blinking, she looked back at the box.

“Hello!” A small purple creature was hovering right in front of her. “I'm Nooroo.”

“Uh…” Dani glanced towards her siblings, who were staring with their mouths hanging open. She looked back at the creature. “What exactly is a Nooroo?”

“It's my name,” Nooroo said patiently. “I'm a kwami. _Your_ kwami, if you accept. I can give you superpowers, and help guide you during this-”

“Do the other boxes have Nooroos in them?” Emma interrupted.

“The other boxes have _kwami_ in them, yes. You've each been chosen to hold one of the seven Miraculouses, which are powered by us.”

Dani looked back at the box. It held an antique-looking brooch, with a square amethyst stone at its center and a bronze filigree backing. “This is a Miraculous? Like Mom and Dad’s?”

“Oh, good, you already know about them. Yes, this is like-”

“So Mom and Dad have Nooroos, too?” Louis asked.

“Nooroo is my _name_ ,” the kwami repeated, starting to sound slightly exasperated. “Your parents are assisted and guided by kwami named Tikki and Plagg. You three will be assisted and guided by myself, Rajji and Wayzz.”

“And you know what's going on? And you can help guide us to our parents, and help us rescue them?”

“Well… I certainly hope so, although I'm afraid at the moment I doubt I know much more than you do about where they are. Wayzz might know more than I do, he's in there.” Nooroo gestured to Louis’ box, then looked at Emma’s. “You… might want to hold off on opening the other one, at least until everything's all cleared up, just in the interest of keeping things from being too confusing. But don't tell her I said that.”

The triplets looked at eachother for a moment, and then Louis shrugged and opened his box. There was another bright flash, and this time a small green kwami, presumably Wayzz, appeared before Louis. The kwami nodded his head solemnly. “It is an honor to meet you, young Master,” he said with the utmost gravitas.

“Um… thanks?” Behind him, Louis could hear his sisters trying desperately not to burst out laughing.

“This is a very special day for me,” Wayzz continued. “I haven’t had a new master in about two hundred years. And my previous master and I have had our eye on you for a very long time. You’re the most compatible with the Turtle Miraculous of perhaps my last ten masters.”

“... Sorry, did you say your last master was two hundred?”

“Two hundred and seventeen, actually,” the kwami said, as though this were perfectly ordinary.

“Um… is that usual for Miraculous holders?”

“Oh, no,” Wayzz said. “The radical longevity is a trait exclusive to the holder of the Turtle Miraculous.”

“Aw, what? No fair,” Dani said.

“Is Louis going to age half as fast?” Emma asked. “Or is he going to just be, like, an eighty year old man for an extra hundred and twenty years or something?”

“The latter,” Wayzz replied.

“Lame,” Louis muttered under his breath.

“What makes Louis extra compatible?” Emma asked.

“His ability to read energy, of course,” Wayzz said. “It’s a very rare gift to be born with. Most of my previous masters have only acquired it upon possession of the Miraculous.”

“Read energy?” Louis asked, confused. “I don’t think that’s something I can do. I mean, I don’t know what it means, but if I could do it I’d probably know.”

“But of course you can,” Wayzz said. “It’s how you could tell Ladybug was your mother. Normally the magic of a Miraculous prevents anyone from identifying a transformed Miraculous user, but you could see that their energies were identical, and so the glamour had no effect upon you.”

“Their energies… you mean, like, that weird haze that’s around people?”

“Precisely.”

Dani stared at her brother. “You never said you could see energy around people.”

Louis frowned. “Wait, just _seeing_ it is special?” He looked at his sisters. “You two can’t… can’t, like, you know, if you kind of squint at people and tilt your head just right-”

“No, Louis, that’s not a thing,” Dani said, somewhat impatiently.

“But-”

“Okay,” Emma interrupted, “that’s enough about Louis. Nooroo said you might know what’s going on?”

Wayzz sighed. “At approximately four AM this morning, a great and terrible spell swept over the land. That is when your parents disappeared, along with every other magical hero within the spell’s radius. They were spirited away, though to where I cannot say. My master, having been content to serve only as guide and Guardian for almost five decades now, was evidently spared. However, it was clear that Paris-that Europe-needs more than a Guardian. It needs new heroes. You three are the children of the most powerful Miraculous wielders in quite some time, and you are each uniquely suited to a different Miraculous. So, my master saw fit to appoint three more Holders before retiring. If you accept, you will become the heroes that Paris needs. You will defend her people against the occupying forces, you will battle their soldiers, you will unravel their spells, and ultimately you _will_ break their hold upon this land. Do you accept?”

Louis, Danielle and Emma all looked at one another. There wasn’t any question in any of their minds or hearts what their unanimous answer would be. In unison, they looked back at Wayzz and nodded.

“Good,” Wayzz said. “Then take your camouflaged Miraculouses and put them on.” Dani pinned her brooch to her shirt as Louis took a nondescript watch out of his box and strapped it to his wrist.

Emma reached forward and took the final box. As she opened it, the now-familiar flash of light was accompanied by a blue figure dashing out, emitting a high-pitched squeal as it darted around the room frantically. Then it flew right in front of Emma’s nose and hugged it. “I'm so excited to meet you!”

“...Rajji?” Emma asked hesitantly. She glanced over at the others; Dani and Louis were staring wide-eyed, but Nooroo and Wayzz looked like they'd seen this a million times before.

“And you're Emma! Oh, just looking at you I can tell you're going to be _so_ much better than my last Holder-don't tell him I said that-but you're going to be _amazing_ -I mean, look, we all love all our past Holders, I'm not saying we don't, but-aaah, you're so _young_ , look at you! I love it! It's been so long since-but, okay, we don't love _all_ of our past holders-”she glanced at Nooroo apologetically, “-just the ones that were suited to us, not like that-ooh, I'm still so mad about it!” She clenched her little fists and shook her tail angrily.

“Mad about what?” Emma asked, as she grabbed her own Miraculous, which had taken the form of a barrette, and clipped her hair back with it. She was starting to understand why Nooroo had recommended delaying this introduction.

“We were _all_ sad when Adele went missing, obviously! That's no excuse to go off and-”

“Grandma Adele?”

“Oh!” Rajji looked suddenly guilty. She looked over at Wayzz. “Was I not supposed to tell them?”

“You haven't told me anything,” Emma said.

“Well-”

Just then, there was a loud and urgent knock at the door.


	4. Emma

The three Agreste teens stared at the door, frozen, as the knocking became more frantic. Then they heard a familiar voice.

“Kids?”

“Oh thank God,” Emma sighed in relief. “It’s Grandma. Coming, Grandma!” She started for the door, but Dani held her back.

“What do we tell her? Everything? Nothing? Does she even know about Mom and Dad?”

“I-” Emma looked around. “Well, the kwami are hiding, so…”

“Kids,” their grandmother called through the door in an overly casual sing-song tone, “I hate to be alarmist here, but your grandfather and I are actually literally risking being shot dead for standing outside, so the sooner you could unlock the door the better, okay?”

“Okay, nobody says anything about anything for now, and we just act like everything's normal,” Louis said, heading for the door. “Well… you know, normal for a day when the government was overthrown.” He unlocked the deadbolt, and his grandparents quickly hurried inside. Gabriel bolted the door behind them as Adele grabbed all three kids at once in a big hug.

“Oh, thank God you’re alright,” she said, kissing each of them on the tops of their heads. “There hasn’t been anybody from the Order by, has there?” The kids shook their heads.

“I thought we weren’t supposed to go outside,” Dani said. “On the news they said-”

“Yes, well, we didn’t think you kids ought to be alone what with everything going on,” their grandmother explained. Dani narrowed her eyes.

“Why did you think we’d be alone?” she asked suspiciously.

“Oh,” Adele said, looking like she’d like to kick herself. She and Gabriel exchanged a look. “Well...um.”

“Oh, good,” Emma said, “You two already know about Mom and Dad. Honestly, Louis, I don’t see how we could have kept that secret for more than five minutes.”

“Did everybody in the family know except for me and Emma?” Dani asked, annoyed.

“And were you two seriously planning on continuing to keep it from us?” Emma added.

“I… suppose we hadn’t really discussed it,” her grandfather said. “But of course you’re right, it would be absurd to try and keep your parents’ secret now that they’ve disappeared.” He looked at the triplets. “They _have_ disappeared, yes? That wasn’t just… propaganda?”

“No, they definitely disappeared,” Louis said glumly. “Into thin air in the middle of the night, as far as we can tell.”

His grandmother wrapped an arm tightly around him. “We’ll get them back,” she said. “I’m not sure how, but I am sure we’ll figure it out.”

“Do you guys know what’s going on?” Louis asked her. Adele sighed.

“I’m afraid not. You probably know more than we do, actually, we haven’t seen any of the news since we left the mansion five hours ago.”

“It took you guys _five hours_ to get here?”

“We didn’t come here directly. We tried to enlist the help of an old friend, but, well, it looks like we’re on our own. Although I can’t imagine where he could have gone at a time like this, unless it was to recruit new… new…” Something across the room had caught her eye. Her three grandkids followed her gaze to the ornate black boxes they'd left out on the counter. For a moment she stared at them like she couldn't believe they were real. “Oh, you have got to be _kidding_ me.” She looked at the kids. “All _three_ of you?”

“Um-”

“All three of them what?” their grandfather asked. Adele pointed at the boxes across the room.

“What?”

“Look. Look where I'm pointing. On the counter. No, _on_ the counter-honestly, when was the last time you had your prescription updated, they're _right_ -”

“Good Lord,” Gabriel said suddenly. His face fell even harder than his wife’s had, and Emma thought she could detect one of his eyes twitch. “Unbelievable. It was bad enough when he gave Adrien one, now he's dragging thirteen year olds into-”

“They're fourteen, Gabriel.”

Gabriel frowned, confused. “Since when?”

“Since today. It’s their _birthday_. You know, most people with three grandchildren have to remember three birthdates, you only have to remember _one_. And it's not like there aren't plenty of clues around,” Adele pointed out, gesturing to all the decorations. Gabriel glanced around the room.

“I've found I'm happier when I don't concern myself with the baffling interior decorating choices of others,” he said.

Rolling her eyes, Adele returned her attention to her grandchildren. “So. Was the Guardian here earlier? Did he tell you anything about what’s going on?”

“Nobody was here, we just came downstairs and the boxes were there. But Wayzz said-”

“Wayzz? Wayzz was here, but not-oh, for heaven’s sake, he gave one of you _his_ Miraculous? He _retired_? He picks the day everything falls to pieces to retire?” Adele looked at her husband in disbelief. “I love him, I’m very grateful for everything he’s done over the years, but how has nobody strangled him yet?”

“Oh, it was a close thing when I found out he’d given Adrien one of those things,” Gabriel said lightly.

“So which of you is the new Guardian, then?” Adele asked the kids. “And where are all the kwami?” Louis raised his hand as his sisters looked around.

“I don’t know,” Emma said, “they all kind of just disappeared when you knocked. We didn’t really get a chance to go over-”

“Adele?” Dani jumped, surprised, as Nooroo poked his head out of her long hair. Adele looked over.

“Nooroo!” Nooroo flew to her and nuzzled her cheek as she laughed. “Oh, it’s so good to see you again! I haven’t seen you since… well, since Tibet.” Her smile faded quickly. “I’m so sorry about how everything-”

“Don’t give it another thought, Adele,” Nooroo said gently. They continued to converse quietly as a second kwami made her appearance, shouting excitedly and darting across the room to Gabriel.

“Gabriel! I haven’t seen you in forever!”

“Hello, Rajji,” Gabriel replied, preemptively resigned. “How have you been?”

“Great! You look _old_ , wow. It’s weird, it feels like no time at all since we first met.”

“It’s been over fifty years, Rajji.”

“Exactly!” Rajji shook her head. “I don’t know why humans are always doing that thing.”

Gabriel narrowed his eyes. “Aging?” he asked.

“Yeah, that.” Rajji darted around Gabriel, occasionally phasing incorporeally in and out of his pockets. “Where are the Skittles?”

“Skittles? Rajji, I have been retired for thirty years, I do not carry candy around in my pockets anymore.” Pouting, Rajji flew back to Emma.

“I told you you’d be better,” Rajji whispered conspiratorially.

“I… I don’t think I have any Skittles either, Rajji,” Emma whispered back. She looked at her siblings. “This is all really weird, right?” They both nodded emphatically. “I mean, the day’s just been one bombshell after another, but now we’re in, like, fever-dream territory, right?”

“All right,” their grandfather said, “now that we’re all on the same page-”

“Are we?” Louis asked.

“-the most important thing to do now is figure out what the Order knows, and what we can keep them from finding out, before they figure out the kids’ connection to Ladybug and Chat Noir.” Gabriel grabbed the remote from a side table and turned the television on.

“Oh, that's the same video they were playing before we left the mansion,” Adele said, annoyed.

“They've been playing it on the half hour all day,” Emma said. Dani looked at her.

“How long were you watching everything before Louis and I woke up?”

Emma shrugged. “Three, four hours?”

“Seriously? And you didn't wake us up?”

“I was waiting for Mom and Dad to get home,” Emma mumbled.

“Oh.” Dani took her sister’s hand and squeezed it.

The video featured the head of the Order, a middle-aged Englishman named Thaddeus Carew (“Did his parents know when they named him he’d be trying to take over the world one day, or was that just a happy coincidence?” Dani asked) addressing his “new empire” from Buckingham Palace (“What a terribly humble choice,” Emma said wryly, “I do hope it doesn’t wind up being too subtle”), explaining that he’d freed Western Europe from the scourge of divisive vigilantes (Nobody said anything at this, but Louis clenched his fists so hard his knuckles turned white) and that by the end of the day all major cities would be united as one. It ended with a rather nauseating pledge of allegiance and loyalty to the new world order.

Adele frowned. “The one this morning was longer,” she said. “There was some clip of his right-hand man in Lisbon.”

“Yeah, I saw that,” Emma said. “I’m not surprised they cut it, if you paused the video at the right places you could see all these crazy rune-covered notes and papers behind him. The Ladybloggers had all these high-resolution screenshots, they were going nuts on the forums tearing every frame of it apart for clues before the internet got shut down.”

“Aw, what, the internet’s down?” Louis asked.

Adele and Gabriel stared at Emma. “Emma,” Adele said slowly, “do you think you could remember anything that was written on those notes or papers?”

“Nah,” Emma said casually. “But I don’t need to, because I saved everything to my phone before it all got deleted.” She pulled up her photos and handed the phone to her grandmother.

Adele swiped through the first few. “These are _incredible_ ,” she said, awestruck. She leaned over and kissed Emma’s forehead. “You are a genius for saving these.”

“Really?” Emma asked, blushing a little. “This is going to help?”

“Absolutely,” Emma’s grandmother said. “If we can interpret these, we can figure out what the nature of their spells is. That could tell us where your parents are, how to take the force-field down, how to defeat them!”

The kids exchanged excited looks. “And you and Grandfather can read them?” Dani asked.

Adele frowned. “No,” she admitted. She looked at her husband cautiously. “You know who _would_ be able to read this, though,” she said. His face went hard.

“No,” he said firmly.

“Gabriel-”

“Absolutely not.”

“But he-”

“Villains have taken over Paris, and the kids have new Miraculouses. I cannot think of a single worse person to bring in than your brother.”

The triplets exchanged a look. “You guys are talking about Uncle Jonathan?” Dani finally asked. Her grandmother looked over at her and nodded.

It wasn't that any of the kids didn't like Uncle Jonathan. They'd only met him a few times, but he'd always been nice enough to them, and without being condescending like some adults. No, it was that every other adult in the family _clearly_ had some issue with him, and nobody would ever say what it was. Their grandfather was the most openly contemptuous, but their mother was a very close second.

“Why would it be bad to bring Uncle Jonathan into this?” Louis asked.

“It's a long story,” their grandfather said evasively.

“Oh my _God_ am I sick of hearing that,” Emma burst out suddenly. Her grandparents stared at her, startled. “Family vote, nobody gets to answer a question anymore with ‘It's a long story’. All those in favor?” Emma and her siblings raised their hands. “Look at that, the motion passes.”

“Since when are family votes a thing?” Adele asked.

“Good point,” Dani said. “Family vote to make family votes a thing, all those in favor?” All three kids raised their hands again. “Wow,” Dani said, “we are on a roll.”

Adele and Gabriel exchanged a look. “Well,” Adele said, “I supposed you three are on the other side of the Need To Know Basis, aren't you?” They nodded eagerly, and Adele sighed. “Oh, very well. Goodness, where to begin?”

“At the beginning?” Emma suggested.

“All the way back there? Well, all right. To make an incredibly long story as short as possible,” Adele took a very deep breath. “I got the Butterfly Miraculous when I was nineteen and immediately told Jonathan, Gabriel got his a few months later, the three of us spent a few years fighting crime and magical catastrophes, Gabriel and I got married, had your father, Adrien was almost murdered by a villain who’d figured out our civilian identities, we decided to retire and lay as low as possible for safety,” Adele took another deep breath as her grandkids stared, dumbfounded, “ten years later there was an apocalypse brewing in Tibet, Gabriel and I disagreed about whether we should take care of it or not, I got mad and decided to go off and handle it myself-which, I cannot, _cannot_ emphasize enough how stupid that was-I got kidnapped and disappeared, and Jonathan… didn’t take it very well-”

“Didn’t take it well?” Gabriel interrupted. “That is the understatement of the century. _I_ didn’t take it well. Your _brother_ promptly lost each and every marble he ever possessed.”

“Well. Yes. Anyway, he disappeared for three years looking for me, eventually found my Miraculous, stole it, used it, and came back to Paris to become a supervillain in the hopes of luring out the two major Miraculouses-that’s your parents’ ones-in order to steal those as well and use their combined power to either locate me or, if necessary, bring me back from the dead.” There was a moment of stunned silence.

“Wow,” Dani finally said. “That’s… pretty messed up.” Louis nodded.

“So, just to be clear,” Emma said, “Uncle Jonathan is Hawkmoth.”

“That is correct.”

“And you think that… that Hawkmoth… would be really helpful here.”

“I think,” Adele said, “that Jonathan is no longer a danger to others, and hasn’t been for thirty years. And I think that he could definitely tell us exactly what the spells in these pictures do and how they work.” She looked at Gabriel. “You _know_ he’ll help if I ask, and this could be the fastest-maybe the _only_ -way to find out what happened to our son.”

Gabriel sighed in defeat. “Oh, very well,” he said. “But we are _not_ telling him about the new Miraculouses.”

“Well, obviously,” Adele said as she grabbed her phone from her purse and dialed her brother’s number. She held the phone up to her ear. “Hi, Jonathan. Yes, I'd noticed. What can you do for me? Well-”

“Tell him another one of his family members has gone missing and we desperately need somebody to go crazy and start terrorizing the city,” Gabriel said.

Adele silenced her husband with a glare. “What? Oh, that was just Gabriel saying hello.” There was a pause, and the look on Adele’s face grew deeply aggravated. “Jonathan says hi to you, too,” she called to her husband sarcastically. She returned her attention to the phone. “Look, I'm at Adrien’s-yes, he really is missing-and we've got some high resolution images of some of the notes visible in that video the Order was playing, and I thought you might be able to look them over, maybe give us some kind of hint about what happened to Adrien and what we can do about it. From the Internet, but apparently that's been shut down now. You'll have to come here in person to see them. Well, _I_ managed, and you don't have nearly as far to go as I did, I'm sure you'll be fine. Wonderful. See you soon.” She hung up. “All we need to do now is wait,” she announced to the room.

“Perhaps the children should wait upstairs until he’s gone,” Gabriel said.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Gabriel, it’s going to be fine.”

“But last time-”

“What, exactly, do you think the odds are that Jonathan is going to go off on a three year long wild goose chase that ends with him stealing Adrien’s Miraculous?” Adele asked her husband.

“Basically zero,” Louis interrupted, “since I have Dad’s Miraculous right here.” Adele and Gabriel looked over at their grandson, startled.

“You what?” Adele asked. Louis reached into his pocket and pulled out the two tissues.

“Yeah, and Mom’s, too.” He held the Miraculouses out towards his grandparents, who were both looking at them like they were a bomb that might go off. There was a pause.

“Okay,” Adele finally said, “I’m not saying your grandfather is right, because he isn’t-but you should _definitely_ hide those before Jonathan gets here.”


	5. Danielle

An hour later, everyone was still waiting and conversation had mostly come to a standstill. Emma was printing out enlarged copies of all the screenshots-Rajji _really_ liked the color printer for some reason-and Louis was getting a 101 on energy reading from Wayzz, a lecture that had quickly become incredibly boring to eavesdrop on for all the other people present who couldn’t see what they were talking about. Grandma Adele had found a family album lying around and was slowly flipping through it, looking like she might burst into tears at any moment, and Dani was getting out her frustrations by tearing down all the decorations, with the occasional assist from her ridiculously tall grandfather.

“One of these days,” Dani said, ripping down yet another crepe streamer, “we are going to have to tell Mom that none of us actually minds sharing the birthday.” Emma and Louis nodded in agreement, but Adele looked up from her album, confused.

“Tell her what?”

“Oh, you know,” Dani said, “she goes overboard every year because she worries about us minding that we all have to have the same birthday. I guess it must seem terrifying to an only child like her, but it’s really not that big a deal.”

“Oh, _that’s_ not why she goes overboard,” Adele said.

“It’s not? Then what is?”

Adele sighed. “It’s a long-” she caught herself, then laughed. “We really do say that all the time, don’t we? You poor kids. And you know what, it’s not a long story at all. Your parents missed your first birthday party entirely and your mother’s felt guilty about it ever since. There, that’s the whole story.”

The three triplets exchanged a look with one another across the room. “We never heard that,” Emma said. “Why’d they miss it?”

“Oh,” Adele scrunched up her face, trying to remember, “I want to say it was some kind of rockslide monster, but honestly it’s been so long I’m really not sure anymore.”

“And she _still_ feels bad about it?” Dani asked, looking at all the decorations she still hadn’t gotten to. “We don’t even _remember_ them missing that birthday.”

“Well,” Adele said, glancing back at the album in her lap, “you’re going to remember them missing this one.” Abruptly, she slammed the album shut. “They did everything right!” she shouted, to her grandchildren’s surprise. “They dodged every mistake Gabriel and I made, every single one. I really, _really_ thought those two were going to pull it off. Juggling the active superhero lives with completely normal childhoods for their kids. But here we are, a generation later, another fourteenth birthday, another mysteriously vanished parent.” Sighing, she leaned forward and put her head in her hands. “They didn’t deserve this,” she whispered.

Her grandchildren all froze, completely at a loss for what to say next. Then Gabriel walked over to her and put a hand on her shoulder. “You didn’t deserve it, either,” he said softly. Adele shrugged in response, then leaned against him.

Before anyone could say anything else, the front door burst open and Uncle Jonathan ran in, quickly slamming it behind him. He let out a huge sigh of relief.

“Wow, that is easily the most terrified I’ve been in a couple of decades,” he said, almost giddily. “Sure hope these pictures are worth the trip. Oh, wait, before that-” Jonathan reached into an overstuffed bag and pulled out three envelopes, “-happy birthday, kids. I, uh, sealed these yesterday, so my apologies if the currency within is now obsolete.” And that’s when Hawkmoth, the most feared villain Paris had seen in over fifty years, handed each of the triplets a birthday card. They each mumbled a ‘thanks’ and tried not to stare. Jonathan narrowed his eyes at them for a moment, then looked at Adele.

“You told them?” He didn’t seem mad, just curious.

“Well, in light of recent events, I’d say we’re past the point where secrets are a good idea, wouldn’t you?”

Jonathan grinned. “Oh, you know me,” he said, “I always think we’re past that point. So where are these pictures?” Emma stepped forward and handed him everything she’d printed out. Jonathan flipped through the pages quickly, then let out a low whistle. “These are _really_ good,” he said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if this is ninety, ninety-five percent of everything they did.”

“Can you decode it?” Adele asked.

“Sure, eventually.” He grabbed a few books out of his bag and tossed them on the dining table, then started laying the pictures out all over it. “Yeah,” he said. “I can definitely work with this.” He started shuffling the pictures around on the table, splitting them into two groups, consulting his books frequently as he did so. “See, there are two main spells. Over here we've got whatever grabbed Adrien and Marinette, and over here is the barrier spell. Now the first one, that's a one-time spell, but the barrier spell is ongoing. It needs to be continuously powered so, speaking off the top of my head here, a good plan of attack would probably be to track that power source down and cut it off.”

“That sounds easy,” Louis said.

“Oh, there's no way it'll be _easy_ ,” Jonathan said. “These guys have an army, and they have a lot of power backing it. If you had shown me these spells two days ago, I would have said there was no way any organization on Earth was powerful enough to cast them. Granted, I haven't been keeping up with this kind of thing for a while, but still.” Jonathan pulled out a chair and sat at the table, continuing to look over the pictures.

“Anything you can tell us about any of it would be incredibly helpful,” Adele said, walking over to the table and leaning over it. Jonathan started flipping through one of the books he’d brought, then pulled out a pen and a notebook.

“I’ll let you know what I figure out as I go,” he said, “but fair warning, decoding _all_ of it could take a while.”

“What’s “a while”?” Adele asked. “Hours?” Jonathan looked up at her, one eyebrow raised.

“Try “weeks”,” he said. “And I didn’t bring my entire library, obviously, and I can already tell I don’t have everything I need in the books I did bring. But I’m here now so I might as well do what work I can before risking going outside again.” He started scribbling something down, looking back and forth between one of the pictures and his book. Everyone else watched him silently for a while.

“So,” Jonathan said casually a few minutes later, not looking up, “what's the plan, anyway?”

Adele frowned. “You tell us everything you can about these spells, and we do something about them.”

“Oh, that can't be all of it. You must have something else.”

“Nothing we’re planning on telling _you_ ,” Gabriel said, speaking for the first time since Jonathan had arrived. Jonathan scoffed derisively in response.

“Like I need you to,” he said, “if the Guardian’s still calling the shots. The guy’s two hundred years old, and in all those years he has come up with exactly two moves.” He held up a finger. “One, find two people about to fall in love, give them both secret identities, forbid them from sharing those identities with each other, and watch them slowly drive themselves crazy over about six months. Two,” he held up a second finger, “if there's a real crisis at hand, give some teenagers insane power and no instructions and then watch from a safe distance without ever telling them anything. So,” he flipped a page slowly, still not looking up, “since there's a real crisis at hand, who are the lucky children he’s throwing to the front lines?”

Before anybody could say anything, Louis began to raise his hand. Dani slapped it down instantly, but their uncle had already noticed out of the corner of his eye.

“You are an _idiot_ ,” Dani whispered at her brother.

“What? He figured it out.”

“It was a _joke_. And even if it wasn't-if we ever get arrested and interrogated, _you’re_ going to be the one who gets us all killed, you know that?”

Jonathan was staring at the three of them. “Oh, you have got to be _kidding_ me,” he finally said, sounding for a moment exactly like his sister.

“Jonathan-”

“Unbelieveable! He’s really got it out for this family, huh? How has Gabriel’s head not exploded yet?”

“With great effort,” Gabriel said through clenched teeth, “and the present company is not helping.”

“So is it all three of them?” Jonathan asked Adele. “Which ones did they get?”

“None of your business,” Gabriel snapped. “You just… you just work on figuring out those spells, and let me and Adele worry about the kids.”

Jonathan rolled his eyes. “Really? You’re going to keep me in the dark, when I’m-”

“After everything you’ve done, you’re absolutely right we’re keeping you in the dark. I’m surprised you’ve managed to last this long without trying to steal one of their Miraculouses, isn’t that your usual approach when one of your family members goes missing?”

Jonathan froze, then slowly put his pen down and looked up at Gabriel. There was a dangerous look on his face-for the first time since their grandmother had filled them in, the triplets had little difficulty believing that their uncle had once been a feared supervillain. “That’s funny,” he said carefully, “because I was just thinking about how surprised I was that one of your family members has gone missing and _you’re_ doing anything at _all_ about it.”

Before Gabriel could respond, Adele slammed her fist loudly on the table, shaking up all the photos that Jonathan had laid out and sending several floating to the floor. “That is _enough_ ,” she said. “Jonathan, keep working. Gabriel… let’s go check the news, maybe something’s changed.” She grabbed her husband and pulled him across the room towards the television. Jonathan sighed and started picking up the fallen papers. The triplets exchanged a nervous look, then hurried after their grandparents.

By the time they caught up, Adele had already turned the TV on and was frowning. “Why does she look familiar?” she said about the newscaster. Dani gasped.

“That’s Aunt Alya!”

“Since when do you have an aunt?” Gabriel asked.

“She’s not-she’s Mom’s best friend. She’s a reporter? She founded the Ladyblog?”

“Oh, that’s right,” Adele said. “I don’t think I’ve seen her since the wedding.”

“Does she always look so… cross?” Gabriel asked.

“No,” Emma said, “I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess that that’s the look she reserves for when armed soldiers from an occupying force are making her read propaganda off her teleprompter.”

“Ah.”

“-are reminded that the lockdown is still in effect for all non-essential citizenry,” Alya was saying. “Citizens without the appropriate clearance will be taken into custody,” Alya rolled her eyes before reading the next part, “for their own protection.” Everyone watching could tell, just from her tone of voice, that she was resisting a strong urge to put sarcastic finger-quotes around the word “protection”. “Please do not be alarmed,” she continued, her eyes moving back and forth exaggeratedly as she read from the teleprompter-presumably intentionally, as she’d been reading from a teleprompter effortlessly for years. “The lockdown will soon be lifted, once the city has been safely secured. You will soon be free to go back to your normal lives, which shall be greatly enhanced under the protection of the Order. No longer will you live in fear of the whims of Paris’ masked vigilantes, Lady-oh there is no way in _hell_ I am reading that, I don’t care how many guns you point at my face.” Alya appeared to be listening to someone speak to her from offscreen, and she clenched a fist and returned her attention to the teleprompter. “No longer will you live in fear of the whims of Paris’ masked vigilantes, Ladybug and Chat Noir,” she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “This is the dawning of a new age of peace and prosperity. And now, a message from our great leader, Thaddeus Carew.” The video from earlier began playing, and Adele turned the volume down.

“So, what do we think the over/under is on Aunt Alya getting arrested?” Louis asked. “Seventy-two hours? Forty-eight?”

“Something like that,” Emma agreed.

“Does she know about your mother, do you think?” Grandma Adele asked. “She was very defensive of Ladybug.”

“Nah, she’s just, like, the biggest Ladybug fan in the city,” Dani said. “If she knew Ladybug was Mom we’d probably still be listening to her scream excitedly over it.”

“Oh, _that’s_ not good,” Jonathan said suddenly from the other side of the room. Everyone looked over at him, alarmed, and Adele quickly turned the television off. “Oh, don't panic, sorry, it's not… it's not that much worse than everything else that's happened today, it's just, you know, not good.”

“What isn't, exactly?” Adele asked, walking over. Jonathan pointed to one of the pictures.

“This part of the spell that grabbed the superheroes, right here-I just looked it up. It's definitely a memory spell.” He looked up. “Wherever Adrien and Marinette are, not only are they presumably imprisoned and powerless, they are completely missing all their personal memories. It's-I mean, actually, it's a pretty brilliant idea, presumably holding a bunch of superheroes prisoner would be a lot easier if they don't remember _being_ superheroes, and even if some of them make a break for it anyway they won't have any idea where to go or who to trust, so recapturing them would be-” Jonathan stopped talking as Dani abruptly turned away from everyone else and briskly walked to the stairs. Jonathan and Adele exchanged a look.

“What was that?” Louis asked.

“It… well, emotionally speaking it felt an awful lot like a last straw,” Adele said, worried.

“I'll go after her,” Emma said, getting up and hurrying after her sister.

She caught up just as Dani reached their shared room, grabbed her pillow, shoved her face into it, and screamed as loudly as she could. Emma waited patiently.

“Better?” she asked, when Dani finally let the pillow fall.

“No,” Dani said. She looked around the room, grabbed a ceramic sculpture she’d been working on painting for the past month, and threw it to the floor with all her might, shattering it to bits.

“Better?” Emma asked again. Dani nodded silently and then sat down on her bed. Emma sat next to her gingerly. “Want to talk about it?”

“You’ll think it's stupid,” Dani muttered.

“I doubt it.”

“It's just, ever since we found out that Mom and Dad were missing, I've been thinking well, if I’m thinking about them and they're thinking about me, then maybe it's like we’re not completely separated after all, that maybe whoever did this couldn't _really_ take them away. But now it turns out they're not thinking about us. At all. They don't remember we exist.”

Emma understood immediately why Dani had assumed she'd think this was stupid. If a character in a movie had said it, Emma probably would have loudly objected until her siblings silenced her. She couldn't imagine being comforted personally by a thought like “at least we're thinking about each other”.

But just because she couldn't imagine finding comfort in it herself, she could still understand why Dani did. She wrapped an arm around her sister’s shoulders and squeezed. “We’ll get them back, memories and all,” she said. “And they’ll be so happy to see us, and they’ll be so proud when they find out that we’re superheroes now, too. Think about that.”

Sighing, Dani leaned her head on her sister’s shoulder. “Maybe.”

“Think about how many Order soldiers we’re gonna beat up between then and now,” Emma added. Her sister laughed.

“Now _that’s_ a comforting thought,” Dani said.


	6. Louis

“Well,” Grandma Adele was saying, glancing over at the clock on the mantle, “they’ve had Adrien and Marinette for over fourteen hours now, and nobody’s shown up to arrest us all or ransack the house. Apparently their quantic identity protection is still intact.”

Louis’ sisters were still upstairs, and his grandparents were discussing next steps in low voices on the other side of the flat.

“The Order will still be able to figure it out from this end, given time, or at least narrow the pool of candidates down considerably. How many people could have gone missing from Paris last night?” Louis’ grandfather pointed out.

Louis got the impression they were trying to keep Uncle Jonathan from overhearing. Since Louis could hear them perfectly well he assumed his uncle could too, although if Jonathan could hear them he was doing an excellent job ignoring them and focusing on his work.

“At least it should take them a while to search the entire city, even if it's their top priority,” Gabriel continued. “Long enough to come up with a suitable cover story, at any rate.”

“A cover story that explains Adrien leaving the continent a week before his fall term starts, or Marinette leaving right before her children’s birthday? Even if we had a good explanation, we’d still invite far too much suspicion.”

“Could we convince them that Adrien and Marinette are still present? Perhaps some kind of illusion-”

“These people know powerful magic, Gabriel, I don't think it would be safe to rely on something like that. Besides, I doubt there's an illusion spell out there strong enough to teach Introductory Chinese for however long this lasts.”

Louis was starting to wonder if he should be actively contributing to the conversation, but watching his grandparents brainstorm like this-hell, just watching two people from his family openly discuss this kind of thing at all-was just too fascinating.

“Very well. So we can’t pretend they’re still here, and we can’t explain their disappearance. Unless…”

“Unless?”

“Well,” Louis’ grandfather leaned back in his chair and lightly placed the tips of his fingers together, tapping the index fingers thoughtfully, “the Order might have the resources to look closely into every recent suspicious disappearance, but I highly doubt they’ll examine recent deaths with nearly as much scrutiny.”

Adele considered this. “That’s actually a good idea,” she said.

“There’s no need to sound _quite_ so surprised, I have had one or two of them since we met.”

“But we’ll need fake death certificates at least, maybe a fake police report, too, and we haven’t had contacts in the police department for thirty years. I suppose I could just scan the place for someone that seems sympathetic and hope for the best-I mean, surely almost anyone we approached would be willing to help Ladybug and Chat Noir-but it’s still riskier than I’d like, asking a complete stranger-”

“Aunt Alya could help,” Louis interrupted. He’d gotten up and crossed the room without either of his grandparents noticing, and was now standing right behind them. They both jumped slightly.

“She could?” Louis’ grandfather asked. Louis nodded.

“Sure, she’s got tons of contacts at the police department. I bet she’d know just who to ask.” Louis’ grandparents exchanged a look.

“Well,” Adele said, “between trusting a complete stranger, and trusting Ladybug’s best friend, it’s not exactly a contest, is it? So that’s settled. Our top priority tomorrow will be approaching Alya, explaining everything, and asking for her help.”

“What about getting,” Gabriel glanced over at the table across the room, “your brother the rest of his library, without being noticed? And moving everything somewhere a bit more discreet? If this house gets raided, there’s no way we could hide-”

“Oh, Emma can just teleport everything to one of the safe rooms back at the mansion, that shouldn’t take long,” Adele said.

“Oh, can she?” Jonathan asked loudly from across the room, not looking up from his work. “Gee, I wonder which Miraculous _she_ got.” Gabriel looked like he wanted to strangle something. Adele glared across the room.

“Fine,” she said back, just as loudly. “Louis has the Turtle and Dani has the Butterfly. Happy?” Gabriel gave her a look, and she looked back at him defensively. “Oh, he would have figured the other two out within a day and you know it,” she said.

Jonathan’s expression flickered, almost imperceptibly, at Adele’s mention of the Butterfly Miraculous, but he didn’t comment on it. “Louis has the Turtle one? Isn’t that the Guardian’s?” he asked instead, looking over at Louis.

“Evidently he’s retired,” Adele said.

Jonathan rolled his eyes. “Good fucking riddance,” he muttered, turning back to his notes.

“ _Anyway_ ,” Adele said, turning back to Gabriel and Louis, “Now that that’s…” she trailed off, frowning. “Actually, I didn’t think of it before now, but Louis, if you’re the new Guardian, does that mean you have the other Miraculouses?”

Louis raised an eyebrow. “There are others?”

“The others are safely hidden,” Wayzz said, popping out of Louis’ shirt pocket. Gabriel looked at the little kwami skeptically.

“How safe, precisely?” he asked. “Safer than they’d be locked in a safe at the Agreste mansion? A hidden safe that’s warded against magical detection?”

“Well…”

“Yes, and where exactly are they hidden?” Adele asked. “They certainly weren’t at the studio when we were there earlier.”

“I’m not at liberty to divulge that information to anyone other than my new Master,” Wayzz said, somewhat stiffly, “but rest assured, the spot in the park is very-”

“They’re in a _public park_?” Gabriel asked, horrified. “With an army of sorcerers swarming the city?”

“Well-”

“Okay,” Adele said, closing her eyes and rubbing her temples, “New top priority for tomorrow: retrieving the incredibly powerful magical artifacts as soon as possible and moving them somewhere that is _actually_ secure.”

“The to-do list is getting somewhat cumbersome,” Gabriel said wryly.

“We could split up,” Louis suggested. His grandmother sighed.

“Yes, I suppose we’ll have to,” she agreed.

 

* * *

 

Louis and his sisters spent the remainder of the day getting acquainted with their kwami and their new powers, or at least as much as they were able in the confines of their bedrooms. The lockdown was still in effect for the rest of the day, so Louis’ grandparents were staying in the guest room and Uncle Jonathan was downstairs on the couch.

All three kids fell asleep fairly quickly, perhaps not surprisingly given the stress and excitement of the day, but Louis woke up at around three in the morning. He'd had issues with insomnia and not sleeping through the night when he was younger, but it had been years since he'd had any issues. It didn't exactly surprise him that he'd regressed, tonight of all nights, but he sincerely hoped it was temporary. Bearing the weight of the city, his parents and the fate of the world on his shoulders was one thing, but having to do it without a regular good night’s sleep was something else entirely.

Louis lay in the dark, staring into the void and thinking about everything and nothing, for a few minutes before realizing he could hear a voice downstairs. Curiosity instantly getting the better of him as it always did, he got up, opened his door, and crept silently down the hall. At the top of the stairs he crouched down and saw that Uncle Jonathan was still at the table, awake, and on his phone.

“... looks like the lockdown should be lifted tomorrow,” his uncle was saying, “so I'll be back then. Yeah, me too. No, it's… more complicated than I thought it would be, but at least we’re pretty sure they’re still alive. I'm going to need the whole library, though, and it's safer if I work on it at my sister’s place. Could you start packing the books up? No, moving them across the city is going to be the easy part, fortunately. Oh, right. Sorry. Well, go back to sleep, it won't take long to pack everything tomorrow. I will. Te amo.” Louis heard his uncle place his cell phone down on the table and start writing.

“Can I help you with something?” Jonathan called out a few moments later, not unkindly. Louis poked his head down the stairs to see his uncle looking up at him expectantly.

“You heard me?”

“Not exactly.” Jonathan tapped his temple. “Residual empathy. It's a perk of having once held the Butterfly miraculous. Adele’s is better than mine, but give her a few weeks and your sister is gonna blow us both out of the water. Mine’s still good enough to tell when people are hidden nearby, though.”

Louis stood up and walked down the stairs. “Everything okay at home?”

“Hm? Oh, yeah, everything’s fine. Except I really should have called three or four hours ago. I get into kind of a zone when I work on this stuff.” Jonathan yawned, then picked his pencil back up.

“You're gonna keep working?”

“I'm making progress.”

“I thought you told Grandma this was going to take weeks. You're not gonna sleep for weeks?”

Jonathan considered this, then closed his book. “You have a point,” he conceded. He got up and started toward the couch, then stopped and turned back. “There’s something else,” he said.

“Well…” Louis frowned. “Apparently the Miraculouses are my responsibility now. All of them. So I figured I should probably ask at least once, do I need to be worried about you?”

Louis expected his uncle to immediately say no, or protest the question. Instead, Jonathan sat back down and considered it very seriously for a while. “I doubt it,” he finally said in response.

“Because you’re a different person now?” Louis asked.

“What? No. But… things are different. I’m not desperate, or angry, or alone. Well, I’m angry. But I can actually do something about what’s happened, something productive. So I’ll just throw myself into that.” Jonathan glanced at all his books piled on the table, and the twelve hours’ worth of notes scattered all over. “And the last time was such a disaster. It took a while, but I’ve accepted the hard way that I’m just not worthy of a Miraculous. I’ll stick to the books and leave the actual magic to the rest of you.”

Louis furrowed his brow. “Who said you were unworthy?” His uncle gave him a look.

“If you’re about to tell me, after everything I’ve been through, everything I’ve done, everything my entire adult life has been about, that all this time I actually _could_ have had a Miraculous-”

“No, no no,” Louis said, waving a hand impatiently. “Obviously you can’t have one. I meant, who said the word ‘unworthy’?”

“Oh. I don’t know, your illustrious predecessor? Maybe he only said “unsuitable”. Does it matter?”

“It’s just a weird way to put it, that’s all. It’s like saying someone with a nut allergy is unworthy of pecans.”

“Huh.” Jonathan suddenly looked very tired, like the day had finally caught up with him. “It might have been nice if somebody had made that distinction fifty years ago. Oh, well.” He got back up and started again towards the couch, then looked back at his great-nephew thoughtfully. “You’re going to be good at this,” he said.


	7. Danielle

Danielle took a deep breath, braced herself, and knocked on the door. There was something unexpectedly satisfying about banging her knuckles against the wood, and once she’d started, it took some self-control to stop. Instantly, she could hear Aunt Alya shouting, although it took a few moments before Dani could understand what she was saying.

“...lifted not _three minutes ago_ and you people are already breaking down my door, can't a girl have ten minutes to herself in this glorious new utopia, or was I liberated from standard working hours as well as-” Alya stopped shouting abruptly as she opened her front door and saw Dani. “Danielle?” Alya glanced down the street quickly, then pulled Dani inside and shut the door. “What on earth do you think you’re doing, going out alone? With everything that's-”

“Can we talk privately?” Dani interrupted. Alya’s demeanor changed instantly.

“Oh… of course we can, sweetheart, come on in.” Alya put an arm around Dani maternally and led her through the house. About ten steps in, Dani was tackled by Alya’s ten year old son, Remy.

“Dani!” he cried, hugging her fiercely. Dani smiled and ruffled his hair.

“Hey, buddy,” she said, “how’s it going?” Dani and her siblings had all babysat Remy at least a dozen times each over the last few years. Dani had always gotten the impression that Remy liked her least of the three of them, but now she wondered if she’d underestimated his affection after all. He wasn’t showing any signs of letting her go anytime soon, at any rate. “Um… Remy, it’s really good to see you, but I,” Dani tried, without any success, to pry one of his arms off, “really need to talk to your mom about something, okay?” Dani looked at Alya helplessly.

“Remy, sweetie,” Alya said, “Mama needs to talk to Dani in the office, could you go get your Papa? Maybe the two of you could make Dani something to eat in the kitchen.” Remy didn’t look happy about it, but he begrudgingly released Dani and ran off. Alya smiled at her apologetically as she ushered her into the tiny office and closed the door.

“Sorry about that,” she said. “I can’t believe he’s even awake at this hour, after all the nightmares he had last night.”

“Nightmares?” Dani asked. Alya frowned.

“Well, his mother got taken away by armed strangers yesterday morning with no warning,” she said, anger creeping into her tone. “And Nino couldn’t tell him when I’d be back, all he could do was watch me on the news, but watching that wasn’t exactly calming the poor guy down, and he knows we can’t promise it won’t happen again, it probably _will_ happen again, and I just don’t know what I’m going to-” Alya cut herself off suddenly, took a deep breath, and forced herself to smile at Dani. “I’m sorry, Danielle, I shouldn’t be saying all this to you. Sometimes I forget you’re not an adult.”

On any other day, in any other scenario, Dani would have been glowing for a week to receive such praise.

“Anyway,” Alya said, “you had something to tell me?” She looked at Dani patiently.

“Um. Yeah. It’s…ugh, sorry, I’m not sure how to…” Dani looked down at her hands. Why had she thought this would be easy?

Alya put a hand on Dani’s shoulder. “Take a deep breath,” she suggested. Dani did so. “Okay, first things first. Does your mother know you’re here?”

In response, Dani did something that, in retrospect, she was surprised had taken her almost 24 hours. She burst into hysterical tears. Alya was momentarily caught off-guard, but she quickly threw her arms around Dani.

“Oh, sweetie! It's okay, it's okay! Whatever it is, we’ll figure it out, I promise.” Danielle grabbed onto Alya like the woman was a life raft and kept crying. Alya stroked Dani’s hair with one hand, then craned her head back towards office’s door. “Nino!” she shouted loudly, “Get the cookies!”

Fifteen minutes and five cookies later, Dani was sitting on the office’s small couch next to Alya and she had mostly calmed down.

“Okay, sweetie,” Alya said gently, “do you want to tell me what’s going on?”

Dani took a deep breath. “It's complicated,” she warned. “I’m not sure where to start.”

“Why don't you just skip to the end and tell me in one simple sentence what you need? Maybe it won't seem so complicated after all.”

“If you say so,” Dani said skeptically. “I need you to get someone at the police department to file false death certificates for my parents.”

There was a long pause. “Okay,” Alya finally said, “so maybe it is that complicated after all. Why on earth do you want me to do something like that?”

“So the Order doesn't figure out that they disappeared yesterday, with the rest of the superheroes.”

“... Say what?”

“Because they can't tell who they are, or they would have arrested the whole family already, right? But Grandma thinks pretty soon they're just going to arrest the families of everyone they can't account for, and we don't know how long that’ll take so Grandfather thought we’d better just account for their disappearance before they notice it, and Louis thought you might have a source at the police station or something who could do it, but he has to go retrieve the other Miraculouses and Emma needs to teleport some magic library to the mansion, so they sent me.”

Alya stared at Dani. “I don’t think I understood very much of that,” she said, “but I’m pretty sure I got the part where you think your mother is Ladybug. Are you _sure_? I mean, it’s definitely not a good sign if she’s been missing since yesterday, but there could be a dozen different explanations for-”

“Oh, no,” Dani interrupted, “I’m very sure about that part. Her Miraculous got left behind when she disappeared. Anyway, Dad’s parents already knew.”

Alya leaned back on the couch and was quiet for a minute. “I’ve spent thirty years trying to figure out who she was,” she said, “and now I can’t even be happy about knowing. I’m just scared for my best friend.” She looked at Dani. “How long have you known?” she asked.

Dani pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and checked the time. “Mm… twenty hours?” Alya’s eyes widened.

“And I thought I had a rough day yesterday.” She sighed, then shook her head as though to clear it. “There are a million dots all trying to connect at once in my head, but that can wait. First priority is to protect you kids.” She stood up and offered Dani a hand. “Let’s go. You can explain all the details on the way.”

 

* * *

 

There was one Order guard in the station when Alya and Dani entered, but he was in the captain’s office and didn't notice their arrival. The general mood today of the station was somewhere between despair and a quiet fury; the city may have been knocked down yesterday by the Order’s surgical and near-instantaneous power grab, but it was clear that many of the people who had made defending Paris their life’s work were not interested in staying down.

Alya walked rapidly over to a young woman sitting behind a desk, who looked incredibly confused by Alya’s grin. Dani hurried to keep up.

“Hi, Paulette,” Alya said, leaning over the woman’s desk so she was right in her face. “Have I got an opportunity for you. How would you feel about sticking it to the Order?”

Paulette's eyes widened. “It's been a _day_ , Alya,” she whispered back, “and you’ve already got a way to take them down?”

“I'm very flattered that you think so, but no, not yet. This is just a way to keep them from getting something they want.”

“How’s that?”

“The Order,” Alya whispered, still grinning, “may have abducted Ladybug and Chat Noir, but they don’t know who they actually _are_. And they’d really like to find out. They’ll be searching the city soon for sudden disappearances, so before that happens I need _you_ to file a false death report.”

Paulette raised an eyebrow. “I don't know who they are any more than the Order does, Alya, do you?”

“As of an hour ago, you bet I do.” Alya tilted her head towards Dani. “Their daughter approached me and explained everything, thought I'd know someone who could help. And of course, I thought of you right away.”

Paulette looked at Dani, stunned. Then she took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “You never ask for small favors, do you?” she asked Alya.

“Can you do it?”

“Sure,” Paulette said, “if I don't get caught and arrested or shot by that Order guard assigned to the precinct halfway through.”

Alya glanced over at the captain’s office. “I’ll distract him. How long do you need?”

“Twenty, thirty minutes should do it.”

“Piece of cake.” Alya put her hands on Dani’s back and gently pushed her around the desk so she was standing next to Paulette. “Dani’ll give you everything you need.” Without another word, she turned and headed for the captain’s office. She stopped a few feet from the door, grabbing her notepad and pen out of her purse, ready to intercept the Order guard the moment he exited.

Dani watched her leave, then looked back at Paulette. They stared at each other awkwardly for a second.

“Here,” Paulette said, wheeling her chair over to a neighboring empty desk and grabbing its unoccupied chair, “sit down.”

“Thanks.”

“So,” Paulette glanced around the station, making sure nobody was close enough to overhear, “your parents are really Ladybug and Chat Noir?” Dani nodded, and Paulette patted her knee sympathetically. “Well, don’t worry, I’ll get you all sorted out. I’ll just need their names, and-”

“Oh, yeah, I grabbed their ID cards,” Dani said, pulling them out of her pocket.

“Perfect.” Paulette pulled up some program on her computer and started typing away, glancing at the cards occasionally. It was a few minutes before she noticed the look on Dani’s face. “Something wrong, hon? I mean-other than, well, everything?”

“Um. I was just wondering, would the guy from the Order really shoot you if he caught you?”

“Oh, sure,” Paulette said, before realizing she was talking to a teenager. “I mean-well, it’s unlikely, probably. Anyway, I won’t get caught. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen Alya at work, but she’s _very_ good at stalling. Not that we’ve done this sort of thing before,” Paulette winked as she said this, “but she’s very good. You were smart to trust her.”

Dani was barely listening. The plan had made so much sense when her grandmother had explained it last night. Dani never considered that it would involve a civilian risking her _life_. Not a Miraculous holder, not a superhero, not even a police officer. Just a regular person, putting her life on the line for Dani’s sake.

“Honey?”

Dani blinked. “It's just-it's just, look, I didn't find out until yesterday, so I never got to talk to them about it, but I don't think they’d-you know, I just can't imagine _them_ asking civilians to risk their lives to keep them safe. I don't know if they'd want me to-I mean, if they'd want you to-just for _our_ sake-”

Paulette cut Dani off by pulling her into a sudden hug. “Don’t,” she whispered. “Don’t you think about it like that for another second. Listen to me,” and here Paulette broke the hug in order to look straight into Dani’s eyes, “this city protects its own and nobody is more ours than those two. After everything they’ve done for us, it is an _honor_ to do whatever I can to keep their kids safe during this nightmare. I know any true Parisian would feel the same. So don’t you ever hesitate to ask me, or Alya, or anyone else loyal to this city for any help you need, understand?”

Dani nodded, silently grateful she’d gotten her crying out of the way an hour ago. Paulette patted Dani’s knee again.

“Glad that’s settled,” she said, turning back to the computer.

Dani had known on some level, of course, that this was how people felt about Ladybug and Chat Noir. Hell, there were at least half a dozen statues of them all over the city. Dani just hadn’t quite made the logical jump that this was how people felt about her _parents_. She wondered if people would feel that way about her soon, and what she could possibly do to be worthy of it.


	8. Emma

“So when did you start doing this kind of thing?”

“Mm… ‘95? ‘96? I’m not sure.”

“And you’ve done this kind of thing a lot?”

Emma and her uncle were walking through Paris, back to his apartment. They’d left as soon as the lockdown had been officially lifted. Emma had never been to her uncle’s place in the city before, so they had to walk all the way there before Emma could start teleporting stuff back to the mansion. She figured she might as well take the opportunity to ask plenty of questions, now that the adults in her family had decided to start answering them.

“More times than I can remember at the moment,” her uncle replied, “although admittedly never with stakes nearly this high. And I can’t say I have much experience with coups or fascist wizards.”

“Oh,” Emma said. “What kinds of things _have_ you dealt with?”

“Oh, your run-of-the-mill criminals, thieves and kidnappers and the like, hexes, cursed amulets, various monsters, there was this Sleeping Beauty spell once that took out an entire arrondissement for like a week, _that_ was a pain, aliens, genies-”

“ _Aliens_?”

“Well, _an_ alien,” her uncle amended, somewhat apologetically, as though this in any way diminished the significance of what he’d said. “Only one genie, too, actually.”

“And during all that you, what, cast spells in the background while Grandma and Grandfather fought the monsters and stuff up close?” Jonathan shook his head.

“No, unfortunately all the reading and research in the world won’t make you any better at actually performing magic,” he said, to Emma’s dismay. Reading and research were her main strong points. “Magic is pretty much a you-have-it-or-you-don’t kind of thing. And for the most part, like almost everyone else in the world, I don’t. But if there was a weird spell or something at work, I could usually tell Adele what its weak points were, and _her_ abilities were insanely versatile, so usually within ten minutes she’d have whipped up one of her Champions with the exact powers necessary to save the day. Not to make it sound easy or anything, because it was pretty hectic for the first couple of years. That’s kind of how being a superhero goes in general; it’s very demanding right away, and then it settles down.”

“Did you read that on Aunt Alya’s blog?” Emma asked. Emma was a very active participant on the Ladyblog forums herself, and she’d remembered reading some article a couple of years back that made a similar claim.

“Nah, I looked it all up myself back in the ‘90’s,” Jonathan said. “Although I have read that blog, and it’s very good. Your Aunt Alya’s clearly done a great deal of her own research. I’m surprised she didn’t ever figure out your parents’ real identities. Especially after you kids were born, too.”

“What do we have to do with anything?” Emma asked.

“Oh, superhero couples are _much_ more likely to have twins. Both of the identical and fraternal persuasion. The rate’s almost forty percent, I think.”

“We’re not twins,” Emma said reflexively.

“Well, you started as fraternal twins. And then one of you became identical twins. Your parents won a rigged lottery twice, basically. I did all the math a little after you guys were born, just for fun. See, Bayes’ Theorem says that the odds of A given B are equal to the odds of B given A, times the odds of A, divided by the odds of B, right?” He didn't wait for Emma to answer. “So given that your mother had triplets, the odds of her being a superhero are equal the odds of a superhero having triplets-which, like I said, in your case is twins twice so that’s forty percent squared, or sixteen percent-times the unconditional odds of her being a superhero, divided by the odds of naturally having triplets for the general population, which is about one in sixty-four hundred. Now, I don't know what Alya would have considered to be the unconditional probability that your mother was Ladybug-there’s millions of people in Paris, obviously, but when you rule out the men, the children, the people who haven't been living here continuously since at least 2015 and so on-let’s just be conservative and say it’s about one in a million. That makes the _conditional_ probability sixteen percent, times one in a million, divided by one in sixty-four hundred, and _that_ probability is one in less than a thousand, which means having triplets means she’s roughly a thousand times more likely to be Ladybug.”

There was a very long pause.

“So you're, like, really smart, huh?” Emma finally asked.

“Well, I-”

“I gotta say, I was _not_ expecting that,” she continued, “just, you know, based on your performance as Hawkmoth.”

“Oh.”

“Because I’ve read about it, and you were _really_ bad at it.”

“Right, I got that.”

“I mean, if your goal was just to freak the city out for a year and give a ton of strangers PTSD, job well done I guess, but Grandma said yesterday that you were trying to rescue her.”

“Yes, that’s accurate,” her uncle said, shoving his hands deep in his pockets. “Terrorizing the city was incidental.”

“Hmm.” They continued walking in silence for a while.

“Do you think we’ll be as good at it as our parents?” Emma asked, after they’d walked another block and a half.

“No,” her uncle replied right away, then winced. “Sorry, I didn’t mean that to sound so-”

“I’m not offended,” Emma said, and to Jonathan’s surprise she really wasn’t. “I just wanted your honest opinion.”

“Well, it wasn’t a personal judgement or anything. Your parents’ powers are just-there’s really no matching them. Hell, your mother’s abilities alone basically make her Deus ex Machina incarnate. And they’re designed to work incredibly well together. The minor Miraculouses just can’t compete.”

“Oh.”

“Which isn’t to say that they’re _only_ good because of the Miraculouses they have. Like I said, I looked up a lot of this stuff a few decades ago, and your mother might be the best Ladybug since Jeanne d’Arc.” Emma’s eyes widened, but she said nothing. “Look, if it’s any consolation-sure, your parents set the bar pretty high, but the previous holders of _your_ Miraculouses all set those bars just incredibly low, so however this goes you’ll at least be better than that.”

“Rajji said something like that yesterday,” Emma said. Rajji had also said to inform Jonathan that she wasn’t speaking to him for the next two hundred years, but Emma didn’t really feel like getting into that right now.

“I’m sure she did.”

“Grandfather was really that bad?”

Uncle Jonathan took a deep breath, as though to brace himself. “Honestly, he was quite good-until he wasn’t. It was sudden. Things got bad, and he all but quit, and insisted Adele do the same. And then, when things got _really_ bad, he rejected the Miraculous outright.”

Emma looked up at her uncle. “You think things would have been different if he hadn’t,” she said. He laughed humorlessly.

“I used to spend quite a lot of time thinking about how things might have been different,” he told Emma. “And, yes, ‘What if Gabriel Agreste hadn’t been such a coward’ is the most tempting of all the what ifs to fixate on, for me, but if I’m being honest there’s also ‘What if I hadn’t been so angry, what if I’d listened to reason, what if I’d stayed in Paris like Adele asked, what if I hadn’t had the ghost of my mother hanging over me and begging me to keep her baby girl safe, what if a part of me hadn’t been jealous of their powers in the first place, what if that damn Guardian hadn’t been so fucking _inert_ and actually _done_ something when-” Emma’s uncle cut himself off suddenly and closed his eyes, silent for a moment. Emma figured he was probably counting to ten in his head. “Sorry,” he said, looking at Emma. He started walking faster suddenly, and Emma had to almost run to keep up.

“So that explains why you think the bar for me and Louis is set so low,” she said, not willing to drop the subject, “but what about Dani?”

“Dani? Dani’s bar is the lowest one of all. It’s so low it’s currently being melted into a deformed hunk of metal by the Earth’s molten core.”

“Really? I thought Grandma saved the world once.”

“What does that have to do with-oh. You’re forgetting, Adele wasn’t the last person to hold that Miraculous.”

“Oh. Right.”

Jonathan stopped suddenly, and Emma almost crashed into him. “Look,” he said, “I get why you’re asking so many questions, and I’m happy to keep answering them, but we’re about two doors away from my building so for now there’s really only time for one more.”

“Oh, okay. Um.” Emma bit her lip, feeling somewhat nervous about what she really wanted to ask, the question she’d hoped to have a little more time to work her way up to. “Why are you _so_ sure my parents are alive?” She hated that she was scared to ask it, as though saying such a thing out loud could have an actual, real-world effect on whether they were alive or not. “I mean, I get that you can tell they weren’t killed by the original spell, but you keep talking like you’re sure they’re _still_ alive.”

“Oh. That.” Jonathan rubbed the back of his neck. “Well… this might not actually be that comforting,” he warned, “but pretty much because killing them outright would have been a _lot_ easier, and taken way less spellpower, than transporting them all to a single location and stripping their memories. These people don’t seem particularly shy about killing, so in the absence of any more information I’m forced to conclude they want the superheroes alive for _something_.”

“That’s… actually very comforting,” Emma said, somewhat relieved.

“Really?”

“Well, okay, it’s also creepy and ominous, but at least it’s better than ‘I just know’ or ‘they’ve gotten out of worse scrapes than this’ or something like that. There’s actual reasoning behind it, not just… I don’t know, wishing.”

Jonathan considered this. “Fair enough,” he said. “Glad I could help.”

 

* * *

 

“Ferd?” Jonathan called out as he opened his apartment door and poked his head in. He opened the door and took a step in, but before he could move aside for Emma, his husband’s arms were around him, preventing any movement.

“Oh, thank God you’re back,” Emma’s uncle Ferdinand said. “I’m too old to be up all night worrying about you, you know.”

“Up all night? You were sound asleep when I called yesterday,” Jonathan said affectionately.

“Didn’t sleep a wink,” Ferd insisted.

“Well, we didn’t have any trouble at all getting back, so-”

“We?” Ferd looked over Jonathan’s shoulder and finally noticed Emma. “Oh, Danielle!” he said, ushering Emma into the apartment and hugging her before she could correct him. “Sorry, I didn’t see you there. Jonathan didn’t mention he’d be bringing you. Hace tiempo que no te veo. Cómo se siente?” Emma stared at her uncle blankly, and he frowned. “Weren't you starting Spanish classes the last time I saw you? Did you stop?”

“Huh? Oh, right. No, Dani’s still taking Spanish.”

“Dani-oh, jeez, sorry Emma. Your hair was longer last time, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, I cut it.” _Three years ago_ , she added to herself mentally. Normally it annoyed her when people mixed her up with her sister, but making awkward conversation with a distant relative she hadn't seen in forever was just so refreshingly _mundane_ that Emma found herself actually appreciating it.

“Emma’s here to transport the library,” Jonathan explained, putting an end to Emma’s brief illusion of normalcy. “Guess who gave the kids superpowers?”

Ferd’s eyes widened. “Jesus, talk about emotional whiplash.” He put a hand on Emma’s shoulder and looked her straight in the eye. “Are you doing all right, honey?”

“Um. You know, I’ve been better. But if this library helps find my parents faster, and put an end to everything that’s going on, I’m pretty excited to help with that, I guess.”

“You’re a good kid,” her uncle said, before looking at Jonathan. “How much progress did you make yesterday?” he asked.

“Enough to realize there’s a very long way to go, unfortunately,” Jonathan replied, “although there’s a lot to work with, which is a blessing. Actually, I can’t wait to show it to you, I think a historian’s perspective on it would be really useful.”

Ferd narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “Sometimes I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or not,” he said.

“I’m dead serious-this spell, it’s using runic structures I don’t think I’ve ever seen in a book less than three hundred years old, I thought they’d completely fallen out of favor. And it’s using them in ways that might be completely unprecedented, but you’d know better than I would about that.”

“Really? That’s interesting. Do you know if they were regional structures?”

“I couldn’t tell, but even for magic they were archaic.”

“Uncle Ferd’s gonna help you reverse engineer the spells?” Emma asked. Her uncles both looked at her.

“No, definitely not,” Ferd said. “The last time I tried to help with something like that I’m pretty sure I wound up _delaying_ the entire project, somehow.”

“But,” Jonathan added, “Ferd, you might be able to figure out who could have engineered these spells in the first place, which would help us figure out who the Order actually is. Who knows, maybe that’ll be the thing that helps the kids take them down, instead of anything I do. Attacking this thing from multiple angles can’t hurt, anyway.” Jonathan started walking further into the apartment, then looked back at Emma. “Come on,” he said, “the library’s this way.”

Emma followed him through the first room, and to a door near the back that she would have guessed belonged to a closet. Her uncle opened the door, flicked a light switch, and gestured for her to follow. Emma took two steps inside the room and looked around. It was quite small, but practically every wall was covered in books, some extremely old, some with spines covered in strange runes and hieroglyphs. Emma had never seen anything like it.

“I feel like Belle,” she said, eyes wide. “You know, that scene in Beauty and the Beast? Well, maybe you don’t, I guess.”

“I saw that movie in theaters, actually,” Uncle Jonathan said. “Ages and ages ago. Adele and I took our mom. It was a few months before she died.”

“Oh,” Emma said, her eyes widening. “I'm sorry, I didn't-”

“No, no, don't be, it's a happy memory. I haven't thought about it in a long time.” Her uncle smiled. “Anyway, lucky for you this library isn't nearly as big. It looks like Ferd’s started packing some of them up already, too. Now that you're here and you can visualize the room properly, why don't you try jumping back and forth between here and the mansion, just to make sure you've got the hang of it before we start with the boxes?”

Emma nodded. “Rajji,” she said, with a confidence she didn't yet feel, “feathers out!” This was her third time transforming-she'd practiced teleporting around her house last night for an hour or so, but her grandparents hadn't wanted her to try teleporting outside the house while the lockdown as in effect, just in case she wound up stranded and alone, so she'd had a go at it again that morning before breakfast. It was finally starting to feel a _little_ less weird, but only just.

Emma focused on her grandparents’ mansion, on the room she and her siblings would be living in for the foreseeable future, the room her father had grown up in. She willed herself to be there, and an instant later she was. She took a moment to catch her breath, orient herself, and look around. Emma and her siblings hadn’t started moving in yet, but they’d stayed at their grandparents’ home enough times in the past that the room was already set up for them. Even with all three of them sharing one room, it was far more space than they were used to at home.

Emma closed her eyes again, focusing on the hidden room one floor up, and teleported again. It was the larger of the two safe rooms in the mansion, and hidden well when the doors were all closed, but of course that was no obstacle for Emma now. Confident that she could now teleport freely between this room and her uncle’s library, she transported back again. Ferd had apparently entered the room in the ten seconds she’d been gone, and he jumped upon her arrival, but Jonathan didn’t. Instead, he held out a box of books to Emma.

“Try moving a few boxes first,” he suggested, “and then you can bring me and Ferd over to start unpacking while you move the rest.”

“Sounds good,” Emma said, taking the heavy box in her arms. She focused on the safe room, and a second later both Emma and the box had disappeared.

The books, however, pretty much stayed where they were. At least until gravity kicked in, anyway.

Emma reappeared about three seconds later, looking horrified. “I am _so_ sorry,” she said, looking down at the jumbled pile of books in the middle of the library’s floor. “I don’t know why that happened.” She looked at her uncles; they had the strangest expression on their faces, and it took Emma a few moments to figure out that they were both desperately trying not to burst out laughing.

“Emma,” Jonathan finally said, his speech carefully controlled, “maybe you should ask your grandfather for some pointers. Ferd and I can start packing on this end, there’s still a lot of that left to do anyway.”

“Oh,” Emma said, annoyed at herself. She’d been so sure she’d mastered this last night, there really hadn’t seemed to be anything to it at all. “Yeah, that’s probably a good idea.” She vanished without another word, certain she heard a split second of her uncles laughing before she disappeared completely.

 

* * *

 

“Grandfather?” Emma stuck her head into her grandfather’s study, and he looked up from his desk, concerned.

“Emma? Is there a problem?”

“No-well, yes, but it's not like a _problem_ problem-I kind of feel like the bar for “problem” has been raised substantially in the last forty-eight hours, don't you?-but I'm just, I seem to be having a bit of a mental block with-what's that?” Emma had reached his desk, and was now close enough to see what her grandfather was working on.

“Oh, this. Well, seeing as how I don't have anything particularly useful to do at the moment,” earlier that day Emma’s grandparents had agreed together that one of them ought to stay behind in case some representatives of the Order showed up, at which point Adele had promptly and aggressively called dibs on accompanying Louis to the Bois de Vincennes, “and I sketch when I'm preoccupied anyway, I thought I'd work out some possible costume designs for the three of you.”

“We can change the costumes?” Emma asked, intrigued.

“Well, the basic theme is locked in, but otherwise you have full control over your transformed appearance.”

Emma looked at the top sketch more closely. It was for Dani, with about twelve different shades and hues of purple, some almost bright red and some deep and nearly blue, forming a mosaic-like pattern down the bodice and onto a flowing skirt, with a matching mask, gloves and boots. “Oh, she's going to _love_ that,” Emma said, stunned.

“Thank you,” her grandfather said; he tended to refrain from any displays of emotion, even in the presence of his grandchildren, but he allowed a touch of pride to infect his tone now. “I've worked on designs for more than a few Miraculous outfits at this point in my life, but the Butterfly ones were always my favorite.” He moved the page aside and showed Emma the one below it. “What about this one?” he asked.

“Um.” Emma bit her lip, and Gabriel narrowed his eyes.

“What's wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing,” Emma said, entirely unconvincingly.

“Emma, if you don't _tell_ me what’s wrong, I can't _fix_ it.”

“It's just… I mean, isn't it a bit… much?”

“It is based on a peacock, dear,” her grandfather pointed out. “Like I said, the theme is not optional. They are rather ostentatious birds. I did make some effort to reign it in, given your personal style.”

The thing was, Emma could tell that he had. She'd seen pictures of the last Peacock hero, Paon-her brain hadn't quite accepted that he and her grandfather were one and the same, but that was a separate issue-and the costume sketched before her now was far more subtle. Even though Emma knew next to nothing about fashion, she could tell that objectively this was a very good design. She would have loved it on anyone else, but somehow the thought of wearing it herself, in _public_ , made her skin itch and her stomach turn.

“Isn't that just the males, though?” Emma pointed out. “Aren't the female peacocks a lot more, you know, brown?” Gabriel looked like he was about to protest, but suddenly stopped himself, intrigued. “Rajji?” he called out.

Rajji poked her head out of Emma’s purse, where she'd been working her way through her second oversized candy bar. “Yes?” she asked.

“The costume-can it be based on _any_ peafowl, or are we locked into your color scheme specifically?”

Rajji looked up at Emma; the corners of her eyes were suddenly getting extremely sparkly, and it took a moment for Emma to realize these were tears. “You don't like my color scheme?” she asked Emma directly, her bottom lip quivering.

“Oh, I love it for _you_ ,” Emma said hurriedly, “it's just not, well, _me_.”

“You’re Peacock, of _course_ it's you!” Rajji protested.

“Yeah, um, while we’re on the subject I gotta say I'm not super crazy about this whole naming convention where we just say the animal we are, either-”

“Oh, just do what you want!” Rajji snapped in a huff, diving back into Emma’s purse. Emma looked at her grandfather, horrified, but he just sighed.

“She’s fine,” he assured Emma. “You’ll get used to it.” He grabbed a few colored pencils and a new sheet of paper, then shooed Emma back when she tried to watch him work. “Here,” he finally said, “is this more to your liking?” He handed the sketch to his granddaughter, who took one look and gasped.

 _This_ was more like it. A much more modest two-piece cheongsam, it was almost entirely brown, but with flecks of iridescent green scattered heavily throughout the bodice. The skirt itself was completely brown, knee-length and flowy, clearly allowing for a complete range of motion. Dark tights and sensible flats completed the look, along with an iridescent green mask with three tiny blue crest feathers over the center.

Best of all, in style it bore more than a passing resemblance to the costume that Ladybug-that Emma’s mother wore, not for fighting but for formal events, fundraisers and the like. Emma couldn’t help but grin widely. “It’s perfect,” she said, and Gabriel allowed himself a small smile as well.

“I’m very glad to hear it,” he said. “Now, what was the matter you originally came in here for?”

“Oh, right,” Emma said, having completely forgotten until now. “I… you know, I was supposed to be moving that library, and I tried moving the first box, and the _box_ moved but the books inside it stayed behind.”

“Ah.” Emma’s grandfather leaned back in his chair, nodding. “Yes, in retrospect I probably should have expected something like that. I certainly had those kinds of difficulties at first.”

“Really?” Emma asked, feeling a little better. “Is there a trick to it or something?”

“It’s a matter of thinking of the thing you want to teleport as an extension of yourself,” Gabriel explained. “And a great deal of practice helps as well. Transform, and I’ll see if I can help.” Emma nodded and called out her activation phrase, this time keeping her grandfather’s sketch in mind. The new costume was even better in reality, but Emma didn’t have long to appreciate it. “Teleport to the far left corner of the room,” her grandfather instructed the second she was ready. Emma turned towards it, focused on a spot near the corner, and willed herself to be there.

“Too slow,” Gabriel said the second she reappeared. “Far, far too slow.”

“It was two seconds,” Emma said defensively, turning back towards him.

“Which is one-point-nine-nine seconds too many,” her grandfather replied. “Come back over here. _Don’t walk_ ,” he added, and Emma teleported back in front of his desk. She was certain she’d been faster that time, but her grandfather was still giving her the same look. “Here,” he said, grabbing a paperweight off his desk, “catch.” He tossed it up at her, and she caught it reflexively. “If you’d stopped and thought for even two seconds about _how_ you were going to catch that,” Gabriel said, “it would have hit you right in the face.”

“Is speed really necessary for moving a ton of books?” Emma asked, putting the paperweight down. “I’m pretty sure I have all day for it.”

“It’s all the same principle,” her grandfather insisted. “It’s not the speed itself, it’s that your abilities need to be as reflexive and instinctive as muscle memory. You can’t think so much about it.”

Emma bit back a groan. For every single hobby, activity or talent she’d pursued and eventually given up on in her entire life, “you’re thinking too much” was the feedback that had always signaled the beginning of the end. Emma had decided long ago that if something required not _thinking_ , it wasn’t for her-but obviously giving up now wasn't an option.

“If it’s muscle memory,” Emma said, “then don’t I need to do it a _lot_ before it’s instinctive and thoughtless?”

“Oh, the muscle memory’s already built into the transformation, along with all your enhanced combat abilities,” her grandfather explained. “You must have noticed those last night. Weren’t you sparring with your sister? I’m quite certain I heard something break.”

“Oh-well, yes, I mean, it wasn’t anything too important, but we did accidentally-”

“So all you need to do,” her grandfather continued, “is get rid of the mental block that’s preventing you from viewing your teleportation abilities in the same way.” He rose from his chair and grabbed a few books off the shelf behind him. “I suppose you’re right, though, we should focus on getting you able to move things first. We can work on combat training after.” He tossed the books to her, and she caught them easily. “Let’s begin. Stack those and hold them from the bottom.” Emma piled the books on top of each other and held just the bottom book. “Now transport.”

Emma glanced back towards the other side of the room and teleported. The bottom book came with her, but the other two stayed behind. “Ugh,” she groaned, then teleported back and bent over to pick them up.

“Better,” Gabriel said, as she stacked the books again.

“Better?” Emma asked. “It didn’t work at all.”

“No,” her grandfather agreed, “but you came back right away. You didn’t stop to think or focus on the exact spot you wanted to arrive at. You simply wanted to come back, and you were back.”

“Oh.” Emma thought about this and realized he was right. It had felt more natural that time, more like an ordinary kind of movement and less like a special power she was intentionally invoking. She focused this feeling as she tried moving the books again.

And, again, two of the three books stayed behind and fell to the ground. “Oh, come _on_ ,” Emma complained.

“Wait,” her grandfather said, once she’d retrieved and stacked the books again. “Move them around first. Up, down, left, right. Focus on how the top book moves in sync with the bottom, with your hands. All three books are a part of your extended person, even if you’re not in physical contact with two of them. It’s the same when you move from one side of the room to the other in an instant, but only if you believe it’s the same.”

Emma moved the stack up and down a few more times, trying to get a feel for what her grandfather was talking about. She tried again, and this time all three books stayed with her. “I did it!” she cried out, looking at her grandfather and grinning ear to ear.

“Well done,” he said, sitting back down at his desk and returning to work on his sketches. “Do it again.”


	9. Louis

Louis and his grandmother left at the start of the day, driving through a city nearly unrecognizable from the one Louis had grown up in, one full of chaos and destruction and fear. Most people were still staying inside, so the two of them stuck out and found themselves targeted by nearly every patrol and impromptu checkpoint. Adele was more than capable of reading every soldier that questioned them and quelling any potential suspicion, but it slowed them down all the same.

After finally reaching the Bois de Vincennes, they’d hiked for hours through the woods, following a trail that only Louis could see, and just barely at that. The Miraculouses, it turned out, were actually quite well hidden after all.

Making their way back was even more nerve-wracking; Adele did her best to avoid the checkpoints they’d encountered on the way over, but they still had to deal with more than one Order guard, speaking casually and silently praying nothing about them seemed suspicious enough to warrant a search. By the time they finally returned, it was nearly sunset. They were exhausted, both physically and emotionally, and looking forward to finally relaxing in the relative safety of the Agreste mansion.

So it was somewhat unsettling, upon arriving, to be greeted by the sight of Gabriel Agreste aggressively and repeatedly attacking his granddaughter Emma with a sword. Danielle, meanwhile, was sitting on the steps of the foyer staircase, watching and eating popcorn.

Louis made his way around the edge of the space to join Dani, while his grandmother simply stood by the entrance and stared incredulously.

“How long has this been going on?” Louis asked Dani, who shrugged.

“No idea,” she said. “They were like this when I got back two hours ago.”

“And you made popcorn?”

“Hell yes I made popcorn, this is the greatest thing I've ever witnessed in my life.” She held the bowl out to Louis, and he grabbed a handful.

“Yeah,” he agreed, “this is pretty great.”

“Gabriel,” Grandma Adele said with an artificial calm, “is there any particular reason you're trying to kill our granddaughter?”

“She needs to get out of her head,” he said, lunging at Emma, who disappeared a second before the point made contact and re-appeared about ten feet to the left of where she’d been. “Though she has improved dramatically since this morning. Perhaps now is as good a time as any for a break.”

“No way,” Emma protested, “I've almost got it down.”

“She’s supposed to be moving that library,” Adele said.

“Oh that’s-” Emma vanished as Gabriel lunged again, and re-appeared behind Adele, “already done, Uncle Jonathan and Uncle Ferd are unpacking everything upstairs.”

“Gabriel,” Adele said, “I appreciate that the kids don’t exactly have the luxury of taking months to become fully acquainted with their powers, as we did, but you do have a tendency to be somewhat single-minded and I would appreciate it if you didn’t work the children into collapsing from total exhaustion before we’ve even begun actually fighting.”

“I’m not tired,” Emma insisted, as she continued to disappear and re-appear all over the place.

“Where’d she get the new costume?” Louis asked Dani, whose eyes lit up as she grabbed some pieces of paper next to her.

“Grandfather designed it. Here, check out ours. Isn’t mine fantastic? I mean, I’ll be making a ton of adjustments obviously, but it’s a _much_ better starting-off point than what I originally got.”

“Ooh,” Louis said, ignoring his sister’s design and looking at his own, “Camo.”

Sighing, Adele gave up on getting her husband to ease up and turned to her other granddaughter. “What about your task for the day?” she asked.

“Oh, yeah, that went perfectly,” Dani said, continuing to watch the action. “Mom and Dad officially died three days ago, horrible car crash in a remote part of the country. It's not going to hold up to a _ton_ of scrutiny, but if the Order’s giving it a ton of scrutiny we’re already screwed anyway. Oh, and you and Grandfather are now officially our legal guardians.”

“Really?” Gabriel asked, finally dropping the point of his sword and looking over. “I would have thought we’d need to sign something first, at the very least.”

“Oh, you did,” Dani said. “Hang on, I have a copy of it.” She wiped her buttery fingers off on her pants, then reached into her shoulder bag and pulled out a form. Gabriel walked over and took it from her, examining it for a moment.

“This is a terrible forgery,” he finally said.

“Well, you were probably all distraught and stuff when you signed it,” Dani said, unfazed. “Since, you know, your son had just died.”

“Yes, I suppose I must have been,” her grandfather agreed. He handed the form to his wife, then looked at the side of her head and gently pulled a leaf out of her hair. “You look like you had a fun adventure,” he observed dryly. Adele rolled her eyes.

“If I ever see Fu again…” she muttered under her breath. “Oh, well, at least we have them now.”

“Excellent.” Gabriel turned to his grandson. “It's your decision, of course, but I think the safe in the smaller of the two second-floor libraries would be the ideal place for them, at least for the time being. Its behind the Manet, and warded against any magical detection. I know the current passcode, but the instructions for resetting it are on the inside of the door.”

Louis frowned. “You don't want to know the code? But what if-”

“Tell your sisters, if you're concerned about the knowledge being lost, but it is Miraculous business and shouldn't be known by those who do not hold Miraculouses. Honestly, it's bad enough that I'll know their location at all. You might consider moving them in the future without telling us.”

Adele raised an eyebrow. “That's a little paranoid even for you, darling.”

“Yeah,” Louis said, “and anyway, you're kind of a-”

“No,” Gabriel interrupted firmly. “I am not. I haven't been a Miraculous holder for a very long time. And, yes,” he continued, turning to his wife, “it is paranoid. And perhaps, in this particular circumstance, unnecessarily so. But we all need to get in the habit of being paranoid from now on.” Adele frowned, but didn't disagree.

 

* * *

 

“The Miraculouses have never needed to be locked in a _safe_ before,” Wayzz said, a touch scornfully, as Louis locked them behind the painting in the library. “In five thousand years they have never once been stolen from a Guardian. I cannot imagine this Order being able to track them.”

“Could you have imagined them kidnapping every superhero in Western Europe?” Louis asked.

Wayzz sighed. “Point taken, Master,” he replied.

Louis frowned, staring at the painting. “It does feel weird to be locking them away instead of _using_ them, though. Shouldn't I give them out? Five superheroes are better than three, and we’re up against something I don't know how to begin fighting.”

“In all things I will follow your wisdom, young Master,” Wayzz said, and Louis winced internally, wondering if he’d ever get used to being addressed in such a manner. At least he could be sure his sisters would never in a million years let it go to his head. “However,” Wayzz continued, “it is usually prudent to have at least a few Miraculouses in reserve, unclaimed and inactive.”

“Why?” Louis asked. “If I have power to give away, and the ability to find people worthy of using it, shouldn't I?”

“The Miraculouses are far more vulnerable when active,” Wayzz said. “Your uncle, for example, could have searched for a hundred years and never found the Butterfly Miraculous, if it hadn't first been found by a worthy and well-intentioned young woman on the banks of the Brahmaputra first.”

“Oh.”

“And, of course, there’s the fact that if all seven Miraculouses had been active three days ago, Paris would be in far worse trouble today.”

“That’s true.”

“There _have_ been times throughout history when all seven Miraculouses were active,” Wayzz admitted, “but it's very rare. It is up to you to decide if the need is great enough to justify it. But take some time to fight alongside your sisters first. I think you will be pleasantly surprised at how effective the three of you are as a team.”

 

* * *

 

Louis and his sisters were unpacking later that evening when their grandmother poked her head in the room.

“I didn't think of this earlier,” she said apologetically, “but do you three want your own rooms? I know this room has always been sufficient in the past, when you’ve stayed for a weekend or a week or so, but you’ll be living here for the foreseeable future. There are more than enough rooms, after all.”

“No, we’re fine,” Dani said immediately.

“Yeah,” Emma agreed, “this is still way more room than we had at home.”

“Totally, I mean, this room is so big it'd probably be really lonely if you lived in it by yourself,” Louis said. Dani glared at him, and Louis remembered too late that living in this room alone was basically how their father had grown up.

His grandmother looked around and sighed. “Yes,” she agreed, “I suppose it would be. Well, I just thought I'd check.”

“Thanks, Grandma,” Dani said, then threw a pillow at her brother once Adele had left. “Do you _ever_ think before talking?” she asked him, annoyed. He didn't answer. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Huh? Oh, sorry. I was just… um, looking at your energy. I guess I can see it a lot better now that I have the Miraculous, that's all.” Dani seemed uninterested in this, and went back to unpacking after an obligatory eye roll. Louis was glad, because he hadn't quite figured out how to put into words the difference between looking at energy before and after accepting the Miraculous. It hadn’t been instantaneous-it was like his vision had been steadily getting clearer and clearer over the last thirty hours or so. He had no idea how much clearer it was going to get, but the difference was already remarkable. He could see Danielle’s bravery, her creativity, her temper, as clearly as if they’d been tattooed across her skin. He could see how these things made her suited to the Butterfly Miraculous-particularly her temper, which she had in common with her grandmother, and which would help keep her focused and objective in situations where other people might be overwhelmed by hypersensitive empathy.

“Louis,” Emma said, “do you need anything else from the house before I drop the transformation?” She’d been teleporting back and forth between their house and the mansion, bringing their suitcases and various things they’d rather not do without.

“No, I’m good,” Louis said, and he could read Emma’s energy clearly as well. She was brave too, but more guarded and analytical, and she would easily resist the pull of the Peacock Miraculous towards the flashy and braggadocious.

“Great.” There was a flash of light, and she was back in her usual baggy jeans and tee shirt. Rajji appeared and hugged her cheek before settling on her shoulder. “I gotta say-look, my powers are great and I’m very happy I have them, but I do feel just a _little_ short-changed compared to the two of you.”

Dani looked up. “Why’s that?” she asked.

“Well-look, you get to have powers out of transformation. Grandma said they’d be way better than hers in no time. And Louis gets to live an extra _hundred years_. I, meanwhile, get to be everyone’s personal ferry service.”

“Okay, granted,” Dani said, “but do you know how _amazing_ that teleportation thing is going to be in battle? I probably won’t even get to _be_ in half the battles, I’ll just be sending in other people instead, and Louis’ battle powers are all defensive and supportive. You’re going to be amazing, I just know it.” Dani and Emma continued to talk for a while, comparing and contrasting the advantages of their power sets. Normally Louis would have eagerly joined in on a conversation like this, but he’d been caught off guard when Emma had referenced his new longevity. He’d been able to clearly read energies for mere hours at this point, and already it was starting to feel more than a little isolating. What would it feel like after years? Decades? An entire century or two? What kind of person would he become?

The kind, he supposed, who gave fourteen-year-olds incredible power without even the courtesy of an introduction, without any kind of guidance or reassurance whatsoever. Louis wasn’t sure how he felt about that.


	10. Danielle

It was almost a week before the Order identified the first superhero. Danielle came downstairs that morning to find her siblings already done with breakfast, which wasn't at all unusual, and glued to the Order-approved news report, which definitely was. The report seemed to be half over, and Danielle watched it for a few minutes, trying to figure out what was going on, before giving up.

“Why is the news running an extended attack ad against some British preteen named Caroline Danvers?” Dani asked.

“Because she’s _Pyra_ ,” Louis replied, awestruck.

“What?” Dani climbed over the back of the couch and stuck herself between Louis and Emma. “No way, she looks younger than we are.”

“By less than a year,” Emma said, but she sounded a bit in awe, too.

Their grandmother walked over. “Those poor parents,” she said, of the middle-aged couple that was being shown taken into custody, “I can't imagine what they must be going through. It's bad enough knowing your father’s been abducted and is being held by villains in some mysterious location, but at least he's an adult. If something like this had happened when he was a _teenager…_ ” She trailed off, shuddering.

“I imagine they're at least pleased at how pathetic this attempt to make their daughter look bad is,” Emma said. “I don't know why the Order is even bothering. She's a straight-A student who skipped a grade and volunteers at a local nursing home. Oh, and in her spare time she fights crime, and she's saved the lives of the royal family on multiple occasions. I don't think there’s really a negative spin you can put on that.”

“Well, ‘Pyra uses her black magic to seduce the crown prince so she can one day rule as Queen’ isn't a bad attempt, all things considered,” Louis said, pointing at the screen.

“What? How dare they!” Dani exclaimed indignantly. “Pyra and Prince Stephen are in love, she would _never_ use black magic on him.”

“In love? They're _children_ ,” Adele said, which earned her a glare from all three of her grandkids simultaneously. “I mean-”

“They're the same age as us,” Dani said, crossing her arms.

“And last year she saved him from kidnappers, and then five months after _that_ they had that adventure together in Scotland, Prince Stephen helped Pyra rescue the Loch Ness Monster,” Louis added. “They made a comic book out of it. I have the special edition version. They're definitely in love.”

“I find it interesting,” Emma said calmly, “that we’re apparently old enough to rescue princes and fight an army of wizards and liberate the continent, but _romance_ is where you draw the line.”

Adele stared at her three grandchildren for a moment. Seeing them all unified on an issue like this was a rare sight. “I withdraw the comment,” she finally said, turning back towards the kitchen. “Dani, come eat breakfast, we’re leaving soon.” Dani got up to follow her grandmother as her brother wondered aloud if, after everything was all over, Mom or Dad might be able to get Pyra to sign his comic book.

“You realize _we’re_ going to be superheroes too, right?” Emma asked him.

“Yeah, but it's _Pyra_ , she's so-” Dani left the room before she could hear what, exactly, Pyra was so.

“Now, Danielle,” her grandmother said firmly as Dani entered the kitchen and grabbed a box of cereal, “before we get going, I just want to say-”

“Grandma, you already said it like ten times last night-”

“that there is _absolutely no pressure_ -”

“I know, I know!”

“-or any expectations whatsoever, and if your civilian empathic abilities don't develop any faster than mine did, that is not something to feel bad about.”

“I'm not going to feel bad, I promise.”

“Because really, we have no idea if it's even possible to hurry them along at all. I didn't start sensing emotions out of transformation until I'd had the Miraculous for over a month, and you've only had it a week-”

“I get it, Grandma!”

“It’ll happen when it happens, dear.”

“Are you telling me or are you telling you?” Dani snapped. Adele sighed.

“I just want to do this right. I’ve never exactly been a superhero mentor before.”

“Grandfather doesn't seem too worried about putting too much pressure on Emma,” Dani pointed out.

“Yes, well, worrying about the emotional well being of others has never exactly been Gabriel’s strong suit,” Adele said wryly. “But you’re right, I’m projecting. I’ll try to stop.”

Fifteen minutes later, when Dani had almost finished eating, the doorbell rang. Dani exchanged a worried glance with her grandmother, and then they both hurried out of the kitchen to the security monitors. Dani’s grandfather was already there, Emma and Louis hovering behind him.

“It's someone from the Order,” Gabriel said, his tone hard. “Is there anything at all incriminating outside of the safe rooms?”

Dani shook her head. “No, nothing.”

“Good.” Gabriel pressed the button that would lock the rooms and disguise them from the outside. Adele raised an eyebrow.

“You could have warned Jonathan before doing that,” she said.

“He’ll live.” Gabriel turned towards his grandchildren. “You three stay out of sight, your grandmother and I will handle this.” He walked towards the front door, and all three triplets followed at a slight distance.

“Can I help you?” Gabriel asked as he opened his front door. The man from the Order gave him a friendly smile.

“Good morning, Mr. Agreste, I'm here on behalf of the Order-may I come in?”

“Of course.” Gabriel opened the door and ushered the man inside. He noticed his grandchildren observing all this in plain sight and allowed himself a small glare before regaining his stoic expression. “May I ask what this is concerning, Officer…?”

“Martin. And yes, this is just a courtesy visit-as you know, it's been a top priority of ours to get everything back to normal as quickly as possible in the wake of the transition. Of course it will all be better for everyone in the long run, but I imagine you’ve been inconvenienced in the past week, and I'd like to apologize for that.”

Gabriel raised an eyebrow. “You're personally apologizing to everyone in Paris for the inconvenience?” he asked. Officer Martin laughed.

“God, no. No, we’re reaching out to the pillars of the community. Men of stature such as yourself. We think that with your assistance and public support, everything might settle down much faster. And of course there would be advantages to your family for your cooperation. The Order treats its friends well, I assure you. How does that sound to you?”

“That sounds very sensible,” Gabriel replied smoothly, “although I'm not sure how much time I have to give. My wife and I have recently taken on rather a large responsibility, and I anticipate that taking up the majority of our attention for the foreseeable future.”

Dani marveled at how her grandfather handled himself during this entire conversation-he was face to face with a representative of the organization that had threatened his family, kidnapped his son and declared him an enemy of the public, and he was as calm as if he was in the middle of a routine board meeting. Dani wasn't sure she'd be able to resist punching the officer in the face if she’d had to say more than two words to him.

“A large responsibility?” the officer asked. Gabriel gestured to Dani and her siblings.

“My son and his wife recently passed, very unexpectedly. Their children are now in our custody.”

Officer Martin glanced over at the three of them, then looked back at their grandfather. “My condolences,” he said, but his tone was a mixture of sympathy and suspicion. “Forgive me, but my records only show two residents at this location.”

“The accident was only eight days ago. We were in the middle of all the necessary legalities when… well. As you say, there have been inconveniences.”

“I see.” He frowned. “Would you mind if I spoke to-”

“Oh, hasn't this family been through enough?” Grandma Adele, who had been completely silent up until this point, burst out angrily. “As if Adrien’s death wasn't enough, now we have to be questioned and harassed in our own home by-” she burst into hysterical tears suddenly, and threw herself into Gabriel’s arms. He wrapped an arm around his wife and patted her back sympathetically, shooting the officer an apologetic look as he did so.

“Would you mind terribly if we cut this courtesy visit short?” he asked. “It's been a very trying week.”

“Of course,” the officer said. “My apologies.” Gabriel disentangled himself from Adele, and escorted the officer to the door.

“But do contact me if there's any way I can be of assistance,” Gabriel called after him. The second the door was shut, Adele stopped crying completely. She pulled a tissue out of her purse and calmly wiped her eyes as her husband turned to look at her.

“Was that really necessary?” he asked.

“It got rid of him, didn't it?”

Gabriel sighed. “I suppose it did. What was your impression of him?”

Adele considered the question for a moment. “Exceedingly self-important,” she said. “And I got the impression he was hoping you'd give him more grief. That is a man that likes having power over other powerful men.”

“What a pity that I disappointed him,” Gabriel said lightly. He looked over at his grandson. “Did you get a look at him?”

“Me-oh, you mean his energy?” Dani had seen that look on Louis’ face before, when he got called on in a math class he’d been dozing through. “Um, nothing really jumped out at me. He's a little ambitious. Not particularly brave or cruel. His magic potential is a little higher than average, but not by much.” He raised an eyebrow. “I'm guessing it goes without saying that he’s not suited to any Miraculous.”

“It does.” Gabriel glanced back towards the door. “What an… interesting development.”

“Are you really going to help the Order?” Emma asked.

“Perhaps,” her grandfather replied. “It could be a very useful opportunity for us, after all.”

“That doesn't bother you?” Dani asked. “Helping the people who took Mom and Dad?”

“Anything that ultimately undermines that vile organization will bring me nothing but satisfaction, I assure you,” he replied, and his tone was so dark that Dani shivered.

 

* * *

 

“Okay,” Dani’s grandmother said, after the two of them had gotten in her car and safely buckled up, “who’s first on the list?”

Dani looked down at the list she and her siblings had put together last night, of all the people they could think of that might have seen her parents during the two days before the occupation began. “Mrs. Vincent, she’s one of Mom’s suppliers.”

The plan for the day wasn't particularly complicated. Ostensibly, Dani and her grandmother were going around informing Marinette and Adrien’s various friends, coworkers and other acquaintances of their untimely deaths, asking for any help they could give to Dani’s grandparents as they assumed custody, and so on. In actuality, Adele would be scanning for anyone who found their story suspect. They'd agreed ahead of time that Adele would signal to Dani by squeezing her shoulder, and then the two of them would do whatever it took to deflect suspicion. In a worst case scenario, they might have to let someone in on the truth, and trust that their loyalty to Dani’s parents would win out over any fear from the Order. Dani would be doing her best to pick up on emotions as well, although as she’d been informed many many times, it was unlikely that she'd succeed. At any rate, she was looking forward to seeing her grandmother in action.

Dani hadn't quite anticipated how draining this would be-over and over, she had to accept the utterly sincere condolences of people who believed completely that her parents were dead. It wasn’t exactly a lie she was comfortable with, although she felt better after reminding herself that all these people would be, if anything, _more_ sad and worried if they knew the truth.

The first four visits went perfectly, but Adele squeezed Dani’s shoulder lightly when they were speaking to Mr. Cordero, the owner of a boutique that Marinette did intermittent design work for. Dani tried to focus on him, but she couldn't feel any emotions coming from him whatsoever, suspicion or otherwise.

“Forgive me,” Adele said, taking his hand gently-it came off perfectly as a sympathetic gesture, although Dani knew that physical contact helped focus her ability, “but you seem like something is bothering you.”

“Oh, well,” Mr. Cordero frowned, “It’s just, I could have sworn I saw Marinette at the store the very day before the occupation began.”

“Oh, that must have been Ms. Kane,” Dani said immediately, the lie coming to her without a thought. “She lives two blocks down, people are always mixing them up.”

“Ah, that must have been it.” He sighed heavily. “What a terrible loss for us all. Please, if you think of anything I can do, don't hesitate to call.”

 

* * *

 

“That was quick thinking,” Adele complimented her granddaughter as they continued on. “Actually, this entire excursion has been much easier than I thought it would be.”

“Well, school hadn't started yet,” Dani said, “so Dad wasn't working. That was lucky. And Mom just does independent design work, so she doesn't go into an office every day or anything. That's lucky, too-she could have been the head designer of a major company if she wanted, you know.”

“I know. Gabriel offered her that position once upon a time, actually. And he wasn't the only one. But she turned them all down, said she needed the flexibility.”

“Yeah, I never got what the big deal was-sure, she’s got triplets, but plenty of people have three kids and a working spouse and they still manage to oh my _God_ it was never about us at all, was it? It was so she could juggle her regular life with being Ladybug.” Dani stared out the window as they drove through the city. “I'm going to have to reevaluate everything she ever said, aren't I?”

“Not everything,” her grandmother said gently.

 

* * *

 

“How awful. How terribly, terribly awful,” Mrs. Bernard, the principal of Dani’s school, was saying. “I simply can't believe this-Mrs. Agreste, your son is easily one of the most beloved teachers at this school. Replacing him will be impossible.” Mrs. Bernard leaned down to hug Dani tightly. Dani had never exactly gotten along with her principal-the woman was, in Dani’s opinion, far too invested in rules-but she accepted and returned the hug gladly. “If you or your siblings need anything-extensions, any kind of allowances, anything at all, just come to me, okay?” Dani nodded, then turned to go. She was just allowing herself to feel relieved that the day was finally over when her grandmother placed a hand on her shoulder and squeezed.

 _Hard_.

So hard it was painful, actually.

Dani glanced back at Mrs. Bernard-she’d sat back down at her desk, and seemed perfectly normal to Dani. Dani’s grandmother reached the door of the office, but instead of opening it to leave, she locked the door and turned back around to face the principal.

Mrs. Bernard looked up, frowning, as she heard the deadbolt click into place. “What are you-”

“Pamela,” Adele said calmly, walking steadily back over to her, “I'm getting the distinct impression that there’s a problem.” She leaned over the desk, getting just close enough to be slightly intimidating. “And if there’s a problem,” her tone was still light, but her smile was no longer reaching her eyes, “I think it would be best if you’d just come out and say what it is, don't you?”

“I-” Mrs. Bernard glanced at Dani, who was still standing at the other side of the room by the door. “Perhaps we should have this conversation privately,” she said quietly.

“Oh, don't worry about Danielle.”

Mrs. Bernard took a deep breath. “Mrs. Agreste,” she said, “you told me that Adrien died in a car crash two days before the Order arrived in Paris.”

“Yes?”

“Well… well, _one_ day before the Order arrived, Adrien was in this building dropping off his fall lesson plans.”

Adele straightened and raised an eyebrow. “You’re certain of this?”

“Of course I'm certain! We spoke for half an hour about-”

“Did anybody _else_ see him?” Adele asked.

“I-well, no, it was still over a week before school was due to begin, the building was otherwise deserted.”

Adele smiled widely. “I'm glad to hear that,” she said brightly. “In that case, I think it would be best for everyone if we agreed now that Adrien dropped his lesson plans off _three_ days before the occupation. Particularly if anyone from the Order is asking.”

Mrs. Bernard glared at Adele. “Mrs. Agreste, I have no idea what is going on right now, but I must say that lying to the people currently running this city strikes me as an incredibly dangerous thing to do. More than that, if _I_ am caught doing it, it could put the very lives of my students at risk, and that is something that I will not do-I have to keep the safety of _everyone_ in mind, not just-” she trailed off as Adele took a giant breath and let it out slowly.

“Pamela. Pamela, I can tell that your heart is in the right place, and that what you're saying is coming from a genuine desire to do the right thing. So I am going to say this as nicely as I possibly can.” Adele dropped her smile completely, placed her fingertips on the desk, and leaned in so she was eye to eye with the principal. When she spoke, her voice was low and threatening. “I have been protecting this city,” she said slowly, “since before you were _born_. So I do not need a lecture on the greater good from you. You have no idea- _no idea_ -the enormity of what I've sacrificed in my life for the sake of the greater good. You have no idea what Adrien has done for the sake of this city, what he is currently suffering because he was brave enough and good enough to defend it. And I have failed as his mother too many times in his life to let you, or anyone else, get in the way of me protecting his children now, while he’s not here to protect them himself.” Adele straightened up, but maintained her piercing eye contact. “If you tell anyone what you just told me, that girl over there,” she pointed back at Dani without looking, “will be arrested. Her sister will be arrested, and her brother will be arrested. Just like Caroline Danvers’ parents were arrested in London this morning. So you’re not _going_ to tell anyone. Have I made myself perfectly clear?”

Dani still couldn’t read emotions, but just by looking at Mrs. Bernard’s face she could see everything clicking rapidly into place. She opened her mouth; for a moment no sound came out, but then she stuttered, “Of...of course. Of course, yes, I’m so sorry, I had no idea.”

Adele sighed deeply and smiled once again, relaxed. “Of course you didn’t,” she said kindly. “I can’t tell you how relieved I am, knowing that you’ll be looking out for the safety of my grandchildren.” She looked back at her granddaughter, who was speechless. “Danielle,” she said, “I think we’ve taken up enough of your principal’s time, don’t you?”

It wasn’t until they’d left the school and almost reached the car that Danielle finally recovered her powers of speech.

“Grandma,” she said, her voice full of awe and admiration, “that was _terrifying_.” Adele put an arm around her granddaughter maternally.

“Thank you, dear,” she replied, “that’s very sweet of you to say.”


	11. Prisoner Oh-Three-Eight

“Eyes forward, Zero-Two-Seven,” the guard at the back of the room called to the prisoner in the front row who was turned all the way around in her seat, scanning the crowd behind her.

“Why do you always do that?” her cellmate, Oh-Three-Eight, whispered.

“I’m just trying to figure out how many people here are actually buying this nonsense. Still none, as far as I can tell.” Seven turned back around in her seat and fixed her gaze on the movie everyone had been forced to watch every morning for the past two weeks. “Besides, the guards are getting a lot more bored with yelling at us. Remember how mean they were the first day? I bet they stop bothering to yell at all in another week or two. Slowly but surely I'm dulling their edge.”

“I highly doubt that,” Eight replied. Next to her, Oh-One-One leaned over and glared at the two of them.

“If you two are going to talk, could you maybe do it in _English_ , the language we all agreed to use?” she asked, annoyed. “Some of us aren’t quatrilingual, you know, and it would be nice to have something to listen to other than this poorly-written drivel.”

Seven laughed. “Have you heard Eight’s English?” she asked One. “You’d be better off just learning French via eavesdropping, it would be faster.”

“My English is good enough to know when I’m being insulted,” Eight said, annoyed and in heavily accented English.

“No talking!” the guard at the back yelled.

Sighing, the three of them turned their attention back to the movie. Eight probably could have recited it in her sleep at this point. It was about five minutes long, which was at least four minutes and thirty seconds longer than necessary. The gist was: You are all dangerous, violent criminals. You have all committed unspeakable acts against society. Your memories have been erased for your own protection. All less extreme rehabilitation methods have ended in tragedy. You will live out the rest of your lives in this place. It’s far better than you deserve.

Oh-Three-Eight had no idea who she was, which meant she didn’t actually know if she was a betting woman or not. But if she was, and if she’d had anything at all to bet, she would have bet anything that not a single word of it was true.

 

* * *

 

“Hey,” Prisoner Oh-Two-Seven whispered later that night, about five minutes before the lights were due to go out, “You asleep?” A second later, Oh-Three-Eight’s face was peering down at her from the top bunk, her shoulder-length dark hair falling around her face like a frame.

“Not yet, why?”

“What… what do I look like?” she asked, uncharacteristically shyly. Eight looked her up and down for a moment.

“Tall,” she replied. Seven rolled her eyes.

“I can tell _that_ ,” she said. “I can tell that I’m tall, and white, and blonde. But there aren’t any mirrors around here and I don’t remember what my face looks like, so I thought maybe you could-”

“Oh, right. Hmm.” Eight studied her friend’s face for a minute. “Well, you’ve got blue eyes-”

“No kidding, you too.”

“Oh! Neat. Um, and your nose is kind of...pointy? But in a good way, it’s, I don’t know, elegant. No roots to speak of, so I guess you’re a natural blonde. And you’re _young_. Twenty, give or take a couple of years, I’d say.”

“Really? Wow, I didn’t realize. I don't feel that young. You’re _much_ older.”

Eight raised an eyebrow. “Gee, thanks.”

“Oh, come on, you have a giant C-section scar, you didn’t really think you were twenty?”

Eight sighed. “No, not really. What else do I look like?”

“Mmm...part Asian maybe? Sorry, I don’t think I can be more specific than that. I think you’re in your early 40’s, but I’m not sure. Cute nose.” Seven squinted. “You’ve got really light freckles on the bridge of your nose, actually. They suit you.”

Eight crossed her eyes for a moment, trying in vain to see them. “Thanks,” she said.

“You, too.” The lights went out, and Seven sighed. “I guess that’s the end of that. Goodnight, Eight.”

Eight rolled back over onto her cot. “Goodnight,” she called back to her cellmate. She stared into the darkness, not feeling a bit tired. She tried to think about her freckles. She tried to think about her blue eyes. Like every night, she tried to resist the urge to trace her fingers lightly over the scar on her lower abdomen, and like every night, she failed.

Oh-Three-Eight gazed into the dark, praying for sleep to take her, trying desperately not to think about the baby she couldn’t remember having.

 

* * *

 

“Would it kill them to add just a _little_ sugar to this stuff?” Seven grumbled under her breath at breakfast the next morning, morosely pushing her oatmeal around without eating it.

“That is the least of their cooking problems,” Eight replied. “Everything’s underdone, as far as I can tell they’ve never heard of salt, they use the wrong kind of flour for the bread-”

“There are different kinds of flour?”

“Yeah...is that not common knowledge?” It had become something of a recreational activity for the inmates to compare what each of them thought of as “common knowledge” in an attempt to figure out who they might have been before arriving on the island. They’d mostly managed to figure out where everyone was from in this way, and now they were currently trying to pinpoint everyone’s careers.

Seven turned to the rest of the table. “How many of you guys know how to bake bread?” she asked. Two out of six of them raised their hands. “Hmm.” She turned back to Eight. “I guess it’s more common than I realized. What else do you know how to make?”

Eight shrugged. “Just about anything, I think. Bread, cookies, croissants, macarons-”

“How many of you know how to make macarons?” This time nobody raised a hand. “Okay, that settles it, you’re a baker.”

“Last week you were convinced she was a tailor,” Oh-Two-Three said. Three was from Lisbon, probably in her late 30’s, and she’d figured out that she was a doctor over a week ago, when she’d discovered that not everybody knew what a metacarpophalangeal joint was.

“In my defense,” Seven said, “who the hell has ever heard of a basting stitch?”

Oh-One-One rolled her eyes. “She knows cooking, sewing, and she’s got a kid. This is not a difficult mystery, Seven.” One was from London, had untameable light-brown hair, and she was easily the youngest person, not just in their group, but in the entire prison. Eight thought she looked about twelve, maybe thirteen. Early on, the others in the group thought they might be able to pinpoint what grade One was in by quizzing her academically, but after she easily answered all the math any of them could remember, including the little University-level Calculus that Four knew, they’d given up on that plan.

“She’s got a point, Seven,” Eight said. “I’m probably a housewife.”

“Why would a housewife be in a place like this?”

Eight shrugged. “Why would a baker be in a place like this? Why would anybody be in a place like this? I kind of doubt the reason has anything to do with our careers, whatever they might-what the hell is going on over there?” Five tables over, one of the guards had begun yelling at one of the youngest of the male prisoners, a gangly teen with dark features who spoke only Italian and heavily accented English. Before Seven could stop her, Eight had put her spoon down, stood up, and started marching over.

“Hey!” she shouted. “Leave the kid alone.”

The guard looked up, surprised. “Get back to your assigned table, Zero-Three-Eight,” he said in a loud, firm voice. Instead, Eight placed herself between the guard and the teen and put her hands on her hips. The guard reached for the baton hanging at his side. “I am giving you until the count of three,” he said, his voice now tinged ever so slightly with fear. Eight held her ground. “One…” he raised the baton over his head, “two…”

“Three,” a voice from behind him interrupted, as the baton was yanked out of his hand. “Wow,” the prisoner said lightly, “your grip is _terrible_. Did they train you guys on how to use these things at all?” He walked casually around the shocked guard, and Eight got a good look at him. He was about a head taller than her, blonde, around Eight’s age if her friend’s estimate was at all accurate. He had striking green eyes and a disarming lopsided grin that was utterly, utterly out of place in this nightmare reality. He twirled the baton around expertly, and when the guard lunged for it he stepped nimbly out of the way and thwacked the guard on the head soundly, knocking him to the ground. “ _That’s_ how you use it, not-” the rest of his lecture was interrupted as about five guards reached him at once, all shouting angrily as they grabbed the weapon and pinned him to the ground. As they dragged him away, he glanced back at Eight and winked. Eight stared, frozen to the spot. There was a funny feeling in her chest-it was familiar, though of course she couldn’t remember having ever felt it before.

“Get back to your seat,” one of the remaining guards said to Eight, snapping her out of her reverie, “unless you want to get taken to solitary like your little friend.” Since nobody was paying any attention to the kid anymore, and there didn’t seem to be anything Eight could do for the prisoner who’d helped her, she figured she might as well comply.

“What on earth was going on over there?” Seven asked as she sat back down. Eight shrugged.

“I guess I made a new friend,” she said.

 

* * *

 

“You know what this courtyard needs?” Seven asked Eight a few days later. They got about two hours outside a day, in one of two small, fenced-in courtyards equipped with a couple of benches and nothing else. Seven and Eight had grabbed one of the benches and were talking idly.

“An escape tunnel?” Eight suggested. She was laying on their bench with her eyes closed, doing her best to enjoy the sunlight on her face.

“Nah-well, okay, yes. But no, what we need is a tetherball set. You know, with the ball on the rope on a pole? And you just smack it as hard as you can? Get all this pent-up aggression out.”

“That’s what picking a fight with the guards and getting thrown in solitary is for,” Eight said.

“Hey, Zeroes!” a male voice shouted at them in English.

“Who’s that?” Eight asked, not opening her eyes. Seven shielded her eyes from the sun and looked to their left.

“One of the Fives,” she said. “They’ve got the other courtyard at the moment.” Eight sighed and sat up.

“Are you talking to us?” she asked, looking at the prisoner on the other side of the fence. He was probably in his early thirties, the number 521 was printed on his shirt, and he was looking at them with an expression so stern it was almost comical.

“Yes, I’m talking to you,” he said, annoyed. “Who’s in charge of you all?”

“The… guards?” Seven said, heavily confused. Five-Two-One scowled.

“You know what I mean,” he said.

“We really don’t,” Eight said.

“Of the _Zeroes_ ,” he said slowly, “which of you is the leader?”

“We were supposed to pick a leader?” Eight looked at Seven. “Did you know we were supposed to pick a leader?” She looked back at the prisoner on the other side of the fence. “Did all the other groups pick leaders?” she asked. “Because we didn’t get that memo.”

“Just-look, who’s the closest thing to a leader you have?”

“Mmm…” Seven looked at Eight. “Three?”

“Yeah, I was gonna say Three.” Eight turned around, scanning the tiny courtyard, and spotted Oh-Two-Three standing on a patch of grass in the far corner, talking to Oh-One-One. “Hey, Three!” she shouted. Three looked up, and Seven and Eight waved her over.

“You know, as long as we’re picking a leader,” Seven said, as Three started walking towards them, “we should pick a new name, too. I mean, I know it’s not personal, but every time someone calls us Zeroes it hurts a little, you know?”

Eight considered this. “Yeah, I wouldn’t mind rebranding,” she said. “Maybe a fearsome animal or something. How about the Wombats?”

“You know,” Five-Two-One said, clearly reaching the end of his limit, “some of us actually take this predicament seriously, Zero-Three-Eight.”

“That’s Wombat-Three-Eight to you,” Seven said as Three reached the bench.

“What’s up?” Three asked them.

“You’re kind of our leader, right?” Seven asked.

“I’m what?”

“The leader of the Fives wants to talk to _our_ leader, so we figured you could do it.”

Three raised an eyebrow and seemed to have a quick internal debate before shrugging and deciding to just go with it. She looked over at the prisoner on the other side of the fence. “What do you want, exactly?” she asked, walking over to him.

“I want you to tell Oh-Three-Eight that while I appreciate her defending Five-One-Five a few days ago, we prefer to look after our own.”

“What the hell?” Eight asked, annoyed. “Why couldn’t you just say that to me directly?”

Three put her hands on her hips and fixed Five-Two-One with a cold stare. “What’s wrong with Eight standing up for Five-One-Five?” she asked. “He doesn’t like being defended by a girl or something?”

“That’s not it at all. We just think-and I haven’t gotten a chance to talk to everyone yet, but the Twos, the Threes and the Sixes all agree so far-that the groups ought to stick to their own for the time being.”

“Why? The groups are completely arbitrary as far as any of us can tell. We’re all in the same boat here, why let random chance divide us?”

“Because, look,” Five-Two-One lowered his voice even though the four guards were all too far away to overhear, “if the guards think we’re sticking to our own, they won’t be expecting a huge, unified show of force. It’ll be easier to lull them into a false sense of security if we’re not showing a united front until we’re ready to make a real move.”

“Huh. That’s…” Three thought for a moment. “That’s actually really good thinking. Okay, Eight, you heard him, no standing up for non-Zeroes from now on.”

“You know, I’m starting to regret unilaterally making you the leader,” Eight replied. “Okay, fine, I’ll let the guards bully all the non-Zero teenagers from now on.” She laid back down on the bench, closed her eyes, and went back to what passed for sunbathing.

About ten minutes later, she heard a “Psst!”

“What now?” she asked Seven.

“It's that other Five,” Seven said, sounding intrigued.

“The teenager?”

“No, no, no, the _other_ one, with the baton.”

Eight’s eyes flew open and she sat up immediately, looking over. There he was, pressed up against the fence, looking at Eight with those green eyes, waving. Eight got up and walked over, casually trying to fix her bedhead (bench-head?) hair without being too obvious.

“Yes?” she asked.

“I just wanted to thank you for the other day,” he said-in French, to Eight's surprise.

“Really? Because your boss just yelled at me about it.”

“Yeah, One can be a bit, um,” he rubbed the back of his head sheepishly, “intense, but he means well. But _I_ appreciated it.” He stuck a finger through the fence. “We haven't been properly introduced; I'm Five-Three-Six.”

Eight grasped his index finger with her hand and shook it daintily, then laughed. “Oh-Three-Eight,” she said in response. “And you were the one who did all the heavy lifting. You were _really_ good with that baton. Think you might be in the circus or something?”

Five-Three-Six shrugged. “I haven’t really had much luck figuring out who I might be,” he said. “I think I might need glasses, but other than that, nothing. No distinguishing scars or weird pockets of knowledge so far. You?”

“Well, my cellmate’s current theory is that I’m a baker, but last week she thought I was a tailor, so who knows. Oh, and there’s this.” She lifted up the bottom of her shirt, revealing her scar. Five-Eight-Six whistled appreciatively.

“Wow, I’d hate to see the other guy,” he said. Oh-Three-Eight raised an eyebrow, then noticed the glint in Six’s eyes and realized he was teasing her. She burst out laughing, and he grinned.

“Oh, I’d love to see the other guy,” Eight said wistfully. “Just for a moment, just so I could know anything at all about them. Are they a boy or a girl? How old are they now? How much do they look like me, do they-” her voice broke, and she stopped talking.

Five-Three-Six sighed. “I'm sorry; that must be awful, knowing you have a kid somewhere, and not knowing anything else.”

“You have no idea.”

“On the other hand,” Five-Three-Six continued, “at least you can be pretty sure someone out there misses you. Maybe that’s worth something.”

“Maybe.” Oh-Three-Eight folded her arms and leaned against the fence, looking up through it into Five-Three-Six’s eyes. “I don’t suppose you Fives have any theories on what we’re doing here? Because us Zeroes are drawing a big fat blank.”

“Oh, you haven't heard?” Five-Three-Six asked. Eight’s eyes widened in surprise. “We’re all highly dangerous criminals,” he continued, and Eight smiled.

“You look like a dangerous criminal,” she said playfully.

“You flatter me, mademoiselle. I'm sure you’ve slit far more throats than I have.”

“That's very kind, but I'm sure Oh-One-One has us both beat.” Eight looked across her courtyard to where One and Three were talking once more. Eight sighed, and her smile disappeared. “If that girl is a day over fourteen,” she said, a cold anger creeping into her tone, “I’ll eat my shirt.”

“Yeah,” Six replied, “it does somewhat undermine the “dangerous criminals” theory, doesn't it?”

“Locking up children… Do they even _care_ if we believe them or not? Or do they think they can just wear us down with repetition, that if we hear it enough times that one day we’ll just forget how stupid it sounds?”

Before Six could respond, a bell sounded on his side of the fence, and his face fell. “I guess that's my cue,” he said, a little sadly, waving goodbye to Eight as he started walking away from the fence.

“Hey!” Eight called impulsively. Six turned back toward her. “Do you-I don't know when our yard time will overlap again, but the next time it does, do you maybe want to hang out together at the fence again?” she asked. She could feel her cheeks growing hot, and she knew she'd spoken way too fast, but Six must have understood her because he grinned from ear to ear.

“It's a date,” he called back.


	12. Emma

“...and finally, the Prime Minister and her family are in talks with leadership from the Order, and it is expected that their protective custody will soon be over,” the reporter on the news said one Monday morning, as the triplets were finishing breakfast.

Dani sighed. “In other words,” she said, not bothering to listen to the rest of the story, “they’ve finally cracked the prime minister and she's ready to denounce Mom and Dad in exchange for her freedom.”

“It's hard to blame her,” Emma said unemotionally. “Anyway, she held out longer than most of the other national leaders.”

“Well, the other national leaders were denouncing superheroes I don't care about,” Dani said, throwing her empty cereal bowl in the sink somewhat forcefully, “so I think I'll just sulk about this one for a little while if it’s all the same to you.”

“No, that's fine,” Louis said. “It's easier to kick your butt at sparring practice when you're distracted.” Dani stuck her tongue out.

“I'm sick of sparring practice,” she said.

“Is this you sulking?” Emma asked.

“I'm serious. Mom and Dad didn't spend two weeks _practicing_ when they got their Miraculouses, they just jumped right into fighting Uncle Jonathan, just,” Dani went into a crouch and started punching invisible enemies in front of her, “bam, bam, bam, hit the ground running, learning as they went.”

“Well, maybe if they had practiced a little first,” Emma said, “it wouldn't have taken them an entire year to stop him.”

Before Danielle could respond, their grandmother entered the kitchen. “What’d I miss?” she asked, glancing at the news.

“The prime minister’s about to crack,” Emma replied, “but her family’s still under house arrest until she does.

“Oh,” their grandmother sighed sadly, “poor Chloe.”

“Now _there’s_ a sentence we didn't hear very often growing up,” Louis muttered, and his sisters grinned despite themselves. His grandmother looked at him, confused. “Mom… you know, Mom and the prime minister’s wife, they don't really get along,” he explained.

“Oh, nonsense,” Adele said. “That was years ago. Besides, she's your father’s oldest friend.” She looked around the kitchen. “I remember when they were just eight years old, running all over this house together, screaming and laughing. Your father was usually such a quiet child, but with her, well, he actually had fun once in awhile.”

“Yeah, well,” Louis said, “I remember last year, after that winter charity ball, Mom came home fuming because Chloe spent the entire night telling everyone that she’d broken Dad’s heart back when they were teenagers and he’d never really gotten over her.”

“Well, I suppose Chloe always did have a… an unrealistically inflated estimation of her own charms,” Adele admitted. “Still-” Before Adele could continue her defense of Chloe, the doorbell rang and all three of her grandchildren immediately went running for the security monitor. “Kids!” she shouted as she followed after them. “Don't you dare answer that door, let me or your grandfather deal with-”

“It's Aunt Alya!” Dani shouted back at her joyfully. She was already opening the door by the time Adele reached the foyer.

“Hi, kids,” Alya said, as all three of them tried to hug her at once. “Sorry I haven't stopped by to check in on you before now.”

“After everything you’ve done for this family,” Adele said, finally reaching the door and ushering Alya in, “don't you dare think of apologizing.”

“I can’t stay long,” Alya protested, as she was pulled inside. “I just came by to make sure that the Order didn’t suspect anything, hasn’t been hassling you or-”

“No, no,” Adele said, “we haven’t had any trouble at all. I don’t think I can ever repay you for-”

“Oh, stop,” Alya said, looking down at the kids and ruffling Louis’ hair. “I’d do anything for Marinette’s kids, never forget that. But I really do-” she tried, and failed, to suppress a yawn, “-need to be going, I have so much to-”

“Nonsense,” Adele said. She looked Alya up and down and clucked her tongue. “Look at you, you look like you haven't slept in a week. What on earth are they doing to you at the station? Here, come over here and sit down. You’re staying right here. Danielle, go make tea.”

“Aw, but-”

“ _Now_.” Dani looked like she wanted to protest further, then decided it would be easier to just leave and return as soon as possible.

“They're not doing much of anything to me,” Alya said, sinking into the couch and relaxing visibly, “but I've been… busy.”

“With what?” Adele asked, sitting next to her. Alya glanced at Emma and Louis, who were hanging on every word.

“It's probably safer if you don't know,” she finally said. Before anyone could object to this assessment, the front door opened again and Gabriel walked through.

“Every time I go to one of those infernal meetings,” he said calmly, removing his coat, “I think it must be the most useless meeting conceivable. But they manage to top themselves every week, just-” he looked over finally, noticing Alya. “Mrs. Lahiffe-I apologize, I didn't see you there.”

“Hello, Gabriel,” she replied calmly. “Citizens’ Council Board Meeting?”

“Indeed.”

“I was very interested to hear that you’d joined,” she said calmly, “all things considered.”

“Oh, I'm sure you’ll have no trouble guessing my motives,” Gabriel replied, walking over.

“Keeping your friends close and your enemies closer?”

“Quite. Although the Council, it turns out, is ornamental through and through. Still, it affords me-and by extension, Adrien's children-some measure of privilege and protection, so I suppose I'll continue to bear it.”

“Well,” Alya leaned back and closed her eyes, “if anything ever comes of those meetings, let me know. I might know somebody who could do something with that kind of information.”

“I see.” He glanced at his wife. “So you’re starting a resistance movement, then?”

Alya’s eyes remained closed. “That’s a dangerous question,” she said.

“Not under this roof, it isn't,” Gabriel replied. Alya considered this, then shrugged.

“In that case, yes, I might have the beginnings of something. Not much, but something.”

“Interesting.”

“Is it?” she asked. Dani returned just then, handing her a mug. “Thank you, dear.” Alya looked back at Gabriel and Adele. “The superheroes are gone. There’s just us. What else is there for me to do?”

Again, Gabriel and Adele exchanged a glance. This one was longer, and it seemed to Emma that they were having a conversation entirely through eyebrow raising. Finally, Adele turned to Alya.

“What if they weren't?” she asked.

“Hmm?”

“What if the superheroes weren't entirely gone?”

Alya’s eyebrows raised, and she slowly sat up, looking at Adele. “Is Marinette-”

“Still missing,” Adele said quickly, “but, well, what if there were _new_ superheroes?”

“... For real?”

“If there were new superheroes, waiting, preparing, ready to make their first public appearance… do you know when the best time for them to strike would be?”

Alya still looked exhausted, but a light had come back into her eyes, a familiar light that had been missing for two weeks now. She sat up eagerly.

“Yes,” she said emphatically, “yes, I absolutely do. This Thursday-” she stopped herself and looked at the kids suddenly. “Maybe you three should go-”

Dani scoffed. “As if,” she said, and Louis and Emma nodded in agreement.

Alya frowned. “Look, kids, you know I love you, I  think you're incredibly brave and mature for your age, but there are some things that children don't need to hear.” Before they could object, their grandmother was speaking.

“There are some things children don't need to live through in the first place,” Adele replied, “and yet, here we are.”

Alya glanced at Adele, then Gabriel. “Fine,” she said, “but don't say I didn't warn you.” She took a deep breath. “This Thursday, there will be an announcement of a mandatory viewing for this Friday. That viewing will be a live, televised broadcast of a mass trial for all Parisians currently in jail for resisting the Order over the past few weeks.” She paused to let this sink in. It was common knowledge, though of course few people were stupid enough to discuss it openly, that city jail cells were at capacity, and the Order was desperate for some way to empty them that wouldn't undermine their authority. “I don't think it will surprise any of you to learn,” she continued slowly, “that the script for that trial has already been written.” She sighed. “I personally read it three days ago.”

“And?” Adele prompted.

“And… and the vast majority of people will be fully pardoned and immediately free to return to their homes. After a rather nauseating speech about the magnanimity of the Order, I might add. However.” Alya took another breath. “Twenty prisoners have been handpicked to serve as… examples. They are not particularly beloved by the public or anything like that, but they are in the public eye-politicians, activists, people whose arrests were particularly noteworthy on the day Paris was taken. They’ll be found guilty of treason and inciting civil unrest, and on live television, with the entire city watching, they will be executed on the spot.”

For a minute, nobody said anything. Then Louis grabbed Danielle’s hand and squeezed it, because he didn’t need to be an empath to sense the waves of fury rolling off of her.

“It is astounding,” Gabriel finally said, “that you have managed to read such a document.”

Alya shrugged weakly and sipped her tea. “Oh, you wouldn’t believe the things I’ve seen in the past two weeks,” she said. “You Agrestes, it turns out, are not the only people in this city who think to come to me for help when the world falls apart. It seems I have a reputation for being both well-connected and tenacious, and the person who sent this to me thought I might have some way of preventing it.”

“Do you?”

Alya sank back into the couch. “No,” she said, sounding defeated. “For the past three days I have pulled every string I can find, tapped every connection. I have nothing. And even if I had some way of getting those twenty people out of jail before Friday, another twenty would just be selected. Saving them _before_ they’re sentenced to death is useless, so the window is impossibly small. But if there are superheroes again…”

Adele put her hand on Alya’s shoulder, leaning towards her. “We’ll need their names,” she said gently, “and the names and addresses of any family they might have that would also need to disappear, once we’ve saved them.”

 

* * *

 

“Grandma, do we have an encyclopedia set?” Louis asked the next day, after rushing through breakfast.

“Upstairs library, the one on the left.”

“Thanks,” he said, kissing her cheek quickly before running off. Danielle and Emma exchanged a look, then got up to follow.

“Why,” Emma asked, as she entered the library, “do you need an encyclopedia set, of all things?”

“Because the Order is still monitoring internet searches, as far as any of us knows, and I’d rather they not see me looking up a bunch of stuff about turtles three days before a new turtle-themed superhero shows up.”

“Again, why?” Dani asked.

Louis grabbed a volume off one of the shelves and started flipping through it. “We need names,” he said. “We should have picked them two weeks ago, but, you know, more dire things were happening and I forgot. We should have been practicing this whole time with them-now we only have three days to break the habit of using our real names in battle. Which, obviously, would be a disaster. _This_ is why Miraculous holders aren’t supposed to know each other’s identities for a while. Well, it’s one of the reasons anyway.” He flipped through the volume some more, biting his lip as he read, then looked up. “How does ‘Terrapin’ sound to you guys?”

“Pretty cool,” Dani said. “Cooler than ‘Turtle’, anyway. ‘Terrapin, cover me! Terrapin, I need a shield!’ Yeah, it works.” Louis grinned.

“What about you?” he asked. “‘Butterfly’ already sounds pretty good, but it was Grandma’s name so that might be confusing, but on the other hand that was like fifty years ago so it’s not that big a deal if you-”

“Actually,” Dani interrupted, “I’ve been-well, I did think I was just going to be stuck with ‘Butterfly’ but I’ve been thinking about alternatives for a while, and I think I have something.”

“Really?” Emma asked. “You didn’t say anything.”

“Well, it’s…” Dani took a deep breath and let it out. “It’s ‘Mariposa’,” she said in a rush.

Emma blinked, completely at a loss as to why her sister seemed so nervous about this revelation. “That’s… that’s Spanish, right?” Dani nodded. “Why Spanish?”

“It’s not about the language, it’s-well, it starts the same as Mom’s name.”

“Ah,” Emma said, nodding. “I like it.”

Dani grinned, relieved. “Really? It’s not too-”

“No, it’s perfect,” Louis interrupted, throwing an arm around Dani’s shoulders. “Dad’s gonna love it.”

Dani laughed. “Yeah, I guess he will,” she agreed. She looked at Emma. “What about you?” she asked. “Any ideas?”

“Mmm, hold on a minute.” She closed her eyes and her siblings waited patiently for a while. Finally, she opened them. “I’ve got it,” she said excitedly, her eyes bright. “ _Hera_.”

Dani and Louis stared blankly at her for a second, then looked at eachother, then looked back at her. “What?” Louis finally asked.

“Hera. You know, Hera? The goddess?”

“Why Hera?” Dani asked. “Is there a famous peacock named Hera or something?”

“No,” Emma said, starting to get annoyed. “Hera is the _queen_ of the _gods_ , and peacocks are her sacred animal. It’s perfect.”

“Emma,” Dani said slowly, “Nobody is going to get that. _Nobody_.”

Emma frowned. “I guess I could go with Juno, would that be less obscure?”

“ _No_ ,” Dani and Louis said in unison.

“Oh, whatever,” Emma said, irritated. “You two are practically illiterate. Other people will too get it. Besides, it’s not like it even matters. I like it, and I’m keeping it.”

 

* * *

 

“-and if you don’t recognize where you are, come back _immediately_ ,” Grandma Adele said, interrupting her husband.

“Well, yes,” Emma’s grandfather agreed. “Obviously.”

“It’ll be fine,” Emma insisted. “I’ve been there before.”

“It’s much farther than you’ve ever teleported before, though,” Adele said, worried, “and you haven’t been there for over a year.”

“My love,” Gabriel said matter-of-factly, “there is no point in stating the obvious. Emma _has_ to do this. We need a way to get the prisoners out of the city as soon as we possibly can after they’re rescued, which means Emma needs to be able to teleport well outside of the city’s limits, which means she needs to _practice_ it beforehand. And she’s been to your country manor before, a location I myself have teleported to many times. It is, admittedly, a stretch, but it is within her potential maximum radius.”

“Okay, enough talking,” Emma said. She closed her eyes and took a few moments to imagine the manor, the gorgeous fields surrounding it, the sun setting behind the hills, no other buildings as far as the eye could see. She’d spent plenty of time there with her siblings when they were younger, mostly during the summer. They’d explored every inch of the property, even drawn treasure maps one year and hidden them under the floorboards of their bedroom. Emma was confident she could get back there, to this place that was nestled in her heart. Emma imagined herself standing right at the front door of the manor, willed herself to be there, and opened her eyes.

She was in the middle of a forest.

“Shoot,” she muttered, annoyed at herself. She started to visualize her grandparents’ mansion, then stopped and looked around again. The woods, upon a second glance, seemed familiar. Emma took a minute to find a tall tree with sturdy branches, then began climbing. She was about halfway up before she realized how stupid she was being. Kicking herself mentally, she looked up to the top of the tree, and a second later she was perched on the highest branch.

From here, she could see the manor easily, about half a mile to the west. She concentrated again, and now she was standing where she’d originally intended, at the front door itself. Smiling, she teleported back to Paris.

 

* * *

 

It was Thursday night, the lights were out, and none of the Agreste triplets could sleep.

“So,” Emma said, after an hour of staring into the darkness in silence, certain both her siblings were also awake. “Tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” Louis agreed.

“Tomorrow we officially become superheroes,” Emma said.

“Tomorrow the Butterfly Miraculous gets redeemed,” Dani added.

“Tomorrow we save twenty lives,” Louis said, “and give the people of this city something to believe in.”

“If we succeed,” Emma said.

“We’ll succeed,” Dani replied confidently.

There was a long pause.

“We should probably get some sleep,” Emma said.

“Agreed,” Louis said.

It was a while, though, before any of them did.


	13. Danielle

By the time Danielle woke up the next morning, both her siblings had already gotten up, gotten dressed, and gone downstairs. She rubbed her eyes and grabbed her phone off the table next to her bed, checking the time.

10:30. Four and a half hours until the trial, although Emma would be moving family members out of the city ahead of time, to a room in the country manor that Danielle and Louis had carefully prepared yesterday, stripping it of any identifying details. Sighing, Dani pulled herself out of bed.

“Danielle?” It took Dani a second to focus on her kwami; she was still getting used to having to look at something hovering a few inches in front of her face.

“Morning, Nooroo,” she said, yawning.

“Dani, before you join the others-” Nooroo hesitated.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, worried.

“Nothing, but… be careful today, all right?”

Dani frowned. “I didn't accept your Miraculous to be _careful_ , Nooroo,” she said. “I did it to, you know, save people. I knew I'd be doing dangerous stuff like this-”

“I know, I know,” Nooroo said. He sighed, and flew up to her, pressing his forehead against her nose. “You wouldn’t have been chosen if you weren’t brave. It's just, after losing Adele, and being taken from Rokeya, and then that year of...” he trailed off, unable to completely suppress a shudder. “Well. I’ve had enough heartbreak this century, that's all. If something happened to you...” Again, Nooroo trailed off, and for a few seconds Danielle didn't trust herself to speak.

“I'll be careful,” she whispered.

“Thank you.”

 

* * *

 

“You’d think there’d be more family members to rescue,” Danielle said to her brother, looking at the list of names and addresses that Aunt Alya had slipped them two days earlier. They were waiting for their sister to get back from transporting the families one by one out of the city and to the manor. “Most of these people aren’t even married, and only two of the ones that are have any children. Adult children, all unmarried, no grandkids.”

Louis shrugged. “I think… I think it’s a PR move,” he said. “They want to scare everybody, but they don’t want to inspire a rebellion, right? So they picked people everyone knows-politicians or whatever-without a lot of personal connections. They don’t want grudges, they don’t want the “traitors” to look sympathetic, they don’t want the people of Paris to feel sad or angry more than they feel _intimidated_.”

“I guess.” Danielle frowned. “Would it have worked? If we weren’t going to be stopping it?” Louis shrugged, and Emma- _Hera_ , Danielle corrected herself mentally-appeared before them suddenly.

“How’d it go?” Louis asked.

“Well, I got everyone,” she said. “And there’s no reason to think the Order suspects a thing. I, uh, think I scared a lot of them though. I know we weren’t sharing anything more than necessary with Aunt Alya, but maybe we should be a little more specific about what to expect next time.”

“Eh, in two hours everyone in the city’s gonna know about us,” Dani pointed out. “Nobody’ll be scared to see us after that, except the Order.”

“True.” Emma glanced at the clock on the wall. “It’s almost time to go, you two should get ready.” She disappeared the moment she finished speaking, and Dani rolled her eyes.

“Okay, I know Grandfather’s been on her to practice that as much as possible,” she said to her brother, “but at this point she's just showing off, right?”

 

* * *

 

The trial was being held at the Stade de France, one of the only places around Paris large enough to hold both the prisoners and the huge number of civilians that were required to attend. Emma had scouted it out, invisibly, the day before. The place had been crawling with Order patrols in preparation for the trial, but she’d been able to find a spot, in a currently deserted restaurant high above the stands, where the three of them would be able to wait during the trial.

The plan was to arrive about halfway through the first part of the trial, after all the security sweeps were done. Emma and Louis would wait while Danielle scanned the twenty to-be-condemned “examples” for a suitable potential Champion. She’d wait until after the mass pardon to make contact-at that point, the stage would be cleared of all but the twenty remaining prisoners. Once the death sentence was officially pronounced, they’d head in. The Champion would hold off and distract the guards as best as able, and Louis would maintain a shield over the twenty prisoners, Emma and himself while Emma teleported everyone out two at a time. The whole operation would, with any luck, be over in less than five minutes.

The triplets watched the beginning of the trial with their grandparents, but before long it was time for them to transform and disappear. Adele hugged them each fiercely before they left. As usual, their grandfather wasn’t really the hugging sort, but he did say he was sure they’d succeed-and also that he was sure their mother would kill him if anything happened to any of them, so he’d consider it a personal favor if they’d return with all their limbs intact. The three were smiling when they vanished, and only after they’d done so did Adele let out an anxious sigh and lean heavily against her husband.

“Jesus,” she said. “Three generations of superheroes in a row.”

“Indeed,” Gabriel agreed.

“You’d think it’d be getting easier instead of harder.”

“Not if you’d been paying attention,” Gabriel said wryly.

 

* * *

 

“We’re clear,” Dani said a few seconds after Emma teleported them all to the room overlooking the stadium.

“Can anyone see us?” Louis asked, looking down at the crowds below. “If they look up?”

“It’s unlikely,” Dani said, “since it’s dark in here and bright outside, but avoid the windows just in case. I’ll let you guys know if I pick up on any sudden bursts of alarm or suspicion from any of the guards below.” Closing her eyes, Dani began scanning the stadium. “Hey, I can sense Aunt Alya,” she said. “I guess they’re making her cover the event.” Dani frowned. “Is this, like, an invasion of privacy?” she wondered aloud. “I can practically read her mind, it’s _really_ weird.”

“Why is it more an invasion of privacy if it’s Aunt Alya?” Emma asked, folding her arms and leaning against a wall about ten feet back from the window.

Dani shrugged. “I don’t know, it just is.” She took a breath, closed her eyes, and began scanning the crowd again. “We should be safe,” she said after a minute. “The audience is pretty scared, to say nothing of all the prisoners on stage, but the guards don’t seem to suspect anything. I think it’s safe to stop monitoring them and focus on picking a Champion.” She fell silent, eyes still closed, and her siblings watched her patiently. About fifteen minutes went by before she opened her eyes.

“Got one?” Louis asked.

“I think so,” Dani said. “Fourth from the left. Senator Ortoli.”

“Ooh, good choice,” Louis said. “Isn’t he the one who held that barricade at the Luxembourg Palace for like five hours the day the Order invaded?”

“Yeah, that’s him,” Dani said. “He’s-I wish you two could feel him, he’s practically fearless right now. No illusions about how everything’s about to go down, either, but he’s just not letting it touch him.”

They waited for another twenty minutes or so, until Dani reported that she could feel a huge burst of relief from the crowds below. Emma sidled over to the edge of the window and looked down

“Yeah,” she confirmed, “It looks like the mass pardon just went through. They’re escorting almost everyone off the stage. Everyone except those twenty people in front. That’s your cue, Mariposa.”

Nodding, Danielle closed her eyes and focused, her right palm up. A few seconds went by, and then a plain brown butterfly landed in her hand. She placed her other hand over it gently, continuing to concentrate. When she uncovered her hand, the butterfly had turned white and gold. It flew up and through a vent leading outside. Dani kept her eyes closed, but Emma and Louis watched silently as the butterfly slowly made its way down the stands and towards the field, losing sight of it well before it reached the stage.

Most lifelong Parisians over the age of, say, thirty-four, were old enough to personally remember what it meant if you were feeling angry, or hurt, or scared, and you looked up and saw a shadowy black butterfly fluttering gently towards you. It had been thirty years, but it wasn’t the kind of thing people forgot if they’d lived through it.

Senator Percy Ortoli was fifty-five, which meant he was old enough to remember, on the other hand, what it meant if your back was against the wall, if you were refusing to give up hope in the face of impossible odds, and you saw a glittering white butterfly approach. Handcuffed and standing before tens of thousands of terrified countrymen, certain it was his last day on earth, Ortoli kept his head high, determined to be brave. Determined not to give any satisfaction to the monsters who’d taken his city. He saw the butterfly, and at first he was certain he was hallucinating. But it came closer, and the eyes of other prisoners were drawn to it, and then it landed softly on him and a presence crashed into his mind like the voice of God.

 _Senator Ortoli_ , she said, _I am Mariposa_.

The voice was different, the name was different, but the hero was back. In Paris’ darkest hour, she’d returned.

 _I can give you the power to save yourself, and the nineteen other prisoners about to be condemned to death_ , she continued. _Do you accept? Are you willing to be the first of my Champions?_

Ortoli sighed in relief and nodded.

 

* * *

 

“Okay,” Dani announced, “Ortoli’s ready to go. He can detect magic potential so he can tell which guards to take out first, he’s got energy blasts that knock people out, and he’s bulletproof.”

Louis whistled appreciatively. “You sure Miraculous holders are immune to being turned into Champions?” he asked. “Because I wouldn’t mind having that power set.”

“You’re probably better at reading magic potential than the Champion is, and I thought your shields were already bulletproof?” Emma asked, as she grabbed his hand in preparation.

“Some of them,” Louis replied. “But most can only take a certain number of hits, and I’m not sure how many I can summon in a row.”

“Shh,” Dani hissed, eyes closed. “I can’t concentrate on hearing what Ortoli’s hearing with you two talking so much.”

“Sorry.” They waited in silence for another ten minutes or so, until Dani opened her eyes and fixed them with a grim stare.

“The sentence is passed,” she told them. She closed her eyes again. “Ortoli,” she said, “Knock out all the guards right next to the prisoners.” Three seconds later she looked at Emma and nodded briskly.

Emma nodded back, determined. “Okay, Louis,” she said, “get ready with a shield in three… two… _one_.”

And the two of them were standing at the center of the stage.

Before anyone could react, Louis had summoned a dome-shaped shield, covering both themselves and the nineteen prisoners.

Dani watched through her Champion’s eyes, and continued to monitor the emotions of the crowd, particularly the Order guards. They had been stunned when Ortoli broke free from his cuffs and magically knocked out the nearest guards, of course-worried, even. They'd been sure none of their chosen examples could possibly pose a threat. Their concern has grown as he took both energy blasts and bullets in stride, but they were still confident that taking him down would only take minutes at most. Some were even pleased-the theatrics of fighting a traitor before executing him might prove invaluable, after all. Taking down an actual threat would make the Order look much more powerful than simply shooting an unarmed rebel, and it might even lend credence to the narrative that he was a danger to the people-with some careful video editing, of course.

The guards didn't give off any actual panic until the masked vigilantes appeared, impossibly, out of nowhere.

And of course, the panic grew steadily as they realized Ortoli was not just taking out guards randomly, but had quickly knocked out all of the most powerful sorcerers in their ranks.

Emma had gotten to work at once, and she'd managed to transport ten prisoners back to the manor before the remaining guards realized they should ignore Ortoli and focus their fire on the shield. Ten seconds and two transports later, Louis fell to his knees as the shield collapsed. Swearing, Emma immediately grabbed her brother with one hand and her fan with the other. She willed it to grow as large as possible as she quickly spun it around, forming her own makeshift shield. The remaining seven prisoners quickly ducked together behind it.

“Terrapin!” Emma shouted, frantically shaking him as the bullets bounced off her fan. “I don't know how long I can keep this going and I can't teleport, _we need another shield_.”

Louis took a deep breath and put his hands up, palms out. Instantly, another barrier appeared. Emma sighed in relief, put her fan away, and grabbed another two prisoners.

“Look into the camera to your left,” Dani instructed Ortoli, as he continued knocking out any guards who got too close, “and repeat after me.”

“People of Paris!” Ortoli cried out. “The days ahead may be dark, but have faith. There is hope! Ladybug and Chat Noir may be gone for now,” Ortoli noticed that Mariposa’s voice broke slightly at this, “but as long as you stay strong and brave, the Order cannot stamp out heroism itself. Look to Terrapin to shield you, Hera to rescue you, and Mariposa to empower you to fight back-and together, as one, we will reclaim our city!”

As scattered cheers broke out amid the chaos, Emma grabbed Ortoli and her brother and vanished, leaving only the prone forms of the unconscious Order guards behind. A few seconds later, she reappeared next to Dani, in the room high above the stands, and grabbed her as well, transporting them both far away.

 

* * *

 

They’d done it.

Dani glanced around the room, at all the people they'd rescued-they were laughing, crying, hugging their loved ones. Dani looked back at her sister and let out a huge sigh of relief. Emma smiled and threw an arm around Dani’s shoulders.

“Nice work, Hera,” Dani said, grinning.

“You too, Mariposa. I guess I’d better start moving people, and meanwhile you,” she looked pointedly at her sister’s blinking Miraculous, “should probably excuse yourself.” She moved towards the other side of the room, where the prisoners’ waiting family members had already started to explain how the new hero Hera would be transporting them wherever they needed, wherever they could safely hide from the reach of the Order.

“You’re leaving?”

Dani glanced to her right and saw Percy Ortoli approaching. Having successfully completed his goal of helping save the other prisoners, his powers were now completely gone. Dani could sense, however, that his heart rate was still through the roof, that he was still high on victory and adrenaline. “I have a few minutes,” she told him. “And before I go, I want to say you were amazing, and we couldn’t have saved all these people without you.” She took his hand and squeezed it gratefully. “Thank you.”

The senator smiled and put his other hand over her own. “It’s funny how things tend to come full circle in this city,” he said.

Dani blinked. “Pardon?”

“Your predecessor saved me once, when I was very young,” Ortoli explained. Dani didn’t try to hide her surprise. “So, you see-even if my life hadn’t been on the line, it would have been an honor just for the opportunity to repay the debt.”

“I had no idea,” Dani said, stunned. “I’m, uh… still learning a lot, actually. I’ve never even given anybody else powers before.”

“It didn’t show.” Ortoli glanced at her Miraculous; two of its four wings had faded, and a third was blinking frantically. “That Miraculous,” he said lightly, “has a rather complicated history in Paris.”

Dani laughed. “That’s an understatement,” she agreed.

“If you’re worrying about its reputation preceding it,” Ortoli continued, “well, I wouldn’t.”

Dani smiled. “Thanks,” she said. “I wish being a Champion wasn't a one-time thing, you'd be-”

“No,” Ortoli interrupted gently. “It's better this way. I remember. It's better when everyone in Paris knows they might be the next hero.”

 

* * *

 

By the time Emma had gotten the last prisoner to safety-to a cousin’s house, a little ways outside of Troyes-it was two hours later, and she was exhausted. Danielle had re-transformed and come back early on to help Louis keep everything calm and running smoothly, asking people ahead of time where they’d be going, that sort of thing, but at this point the two had nothing to do but wait for their sister. Louis looked at Emma somewhat skeptically as she reappeared for the last time. “Do you need to take a minute?” he asked.

“I’m fine,” she said. “A little drained, but I can get us back to Paris before my well-earned post-adrenaline crash hits, I’m sure.” She took each sibling by the hand, and a moment later they were back in the living room of the Agreste mansion. Their grandparents, seated on the couch, jumped up when they arrived and soon Adele was upon all three of them.

“Oh, you did so good!” she gushed, alternating between hugging them tightly and kissing their cheeks and foreheads, as though she couldn’t make up her mind how to best express her relief and elation. “We watched the whole thing, it was incredible-your parents would be so proud-” Louis and Emma were grinning sheepishly at this, but Dani stiffened suddenly and took a step back. “Danielle?”

“What’s wrong?” she asked, narrowing her eyes suspiciously. Her grandmother’s smile faltered, and Danielle could see, and sense, the moment Adele considered lying before realizing it would be useless as long as Danielle was transformed. She glanced at her husband.

“We… we were going to tell you, I just thought you’d earned a few minutes to take a breath, and-”

“ _Grandma_ ,” Emma interrupted, now on alert as well. “What’s. Wrong?”

Adele sighed. “Alya’s been arrested,” she said.


	14. Nino Lahiffe

Nino Lahiffe loved his wife more than anyone else in the world. She was beautiful, of course, but that actually had very little to do with it. He’d fallen for her passion, her drive, her tenacity. He’d fallen for her inexhaustible determination to find the truth in all things, no matter the cost, even though it drove him crazy sometimes. He’d fallen for these qualities when they were still teenagers, but over the years those traits had matured along with her, and Nino had fallen more and more in love with each passing day.

Before three weeks ago, it never once occurred to Nino that the things that made his wife irresistible to him might also get her entire family executed.

Things like that didn’t happen to reporters in free societies, after all.

Three weeks ago, Nino had been forced to reevaluate everything he knew about his wife through the lens of a very, very different world than the one he’d lived in up until that point. And he’d been forced to conclude that what had seemed impossible yesterday was now distressingly plausible.

To his eternal credit, at no point did he feel an ounce of bitterness or resentment towards his wife. She was still the woman he loved more than anything, and if worst came to worst and the world burned down around them, it would be enough in the end to be standing by her side when it did.

Or at least, it might have been if they hadn’t had a son.

Three weeks ago, Nino had watched armed guards take his wife from their home. He’d been stuck there, watching her on TV as she was forced to deliver the worst news of her career. And when he was done quietly reevaluating everything he’d thought he’d known, he started preparing.

He packed a backpack with a first-aid kit, a blanket, a flashlight, and enough food and water for a few days. He made sure it was easily reachable from anywhere in the house, but inconspicuous. He made sure Alya and Remy both knew exactly where it was.

He started checking in with Alya via text on the hour whenever she was out.

He made sure Remy could get from his bedroom to the fire escape, to the alley, in less than a minute.

He warned his son they might have to go on the run soon, and he tried to make it sound as much like an exciting adventure as possible.

 

* * *

 

For the past week, Alya had been more absent and more exhausted than usual. Then, yesterday, the mandatory broadcast had been announced.

“Do you know what it’s going to be?” Nino asked. Alya nodded grimly. “I don’t suppose you can tell me?”

Alya frowned. “I desperately want to,” she told her husband. “I just want to tell you everything and curl up in your arms and have you tell me it’s all going to be alright. But-”

“I know,” he said gently. “It’s safer if I don’t know.”

“Yeah.”

Nino wrapped an arm around his wife and kissed the top of her head. “It’s all going to be alright,” he promised.

Sighing, Alya leaned against her husband, letting him support her weight. “Thanks,” she said.

“I don’t suppose I can get a general idea of what to expect, at least?”

“Well… depending on how something I’ve set into motion plays out, either something unbelievably good or something horrifying. Those are the only two options, I’m afraid.”

“Got it.”

“Oh-and before I forget.” She looked up at Nino, looking him firmly in the eye. “I don’t care how mandatory the broadcast is, under no circumstances is our son to watch it.”

 

* * *

 

Alya was required to cover the event, so she was gone hours before it began. Nino sent Remy upstairs about ten minutes before the broadcast was scheduled to begin, and then he sat on his couch and watched quietly. For most of it, Nino was puzzled-the mass pardon was good, obviously, but not unbelievably so. Frankly, it was somewhat predictable. The Order had no love for the citizens they’d arrested during their brief reign, as far as Nino could tell, but just logistically managing them was clearly taking up too much of the Order’s attention and resources for their liking. A mass pardon was almost predictable.

And then they got to the second half of the trial, and Nino understood why Alya had forbidden Remy from watching.

Nino was certain he was watching the “something horrifying” version of events unfold until, at the last possible second, the “something unbelievably good” option showed up, quite literally, out of nowhere.

Superheroes. There were superheroes in Paris again.

How the hell had Alya pulled _that_ off?

They were in and out in five minutes, and the broadcast was cut off shortly after they disappeared. Nino stared at the blank screen in shock for a while.

And then it slowly dawned on him that there was no way the Order would take this lying down. With a growing sense of apprehension, he grabbed his phone and texted his wife: _Everything okay?_

 _So far so good_ , came her typical response about thirty seconds later. Nino relaxed, and started making dinner.

An hour later, Alya still wasn't home. That certainly wasn't unusual, but Nino texted her anyway. _Everything okay?_

Five minutes later there was still no response, which was unprecedented.

Five minutes after that, Nino decided to give her another five minutes before assuming the worst.

Four minutes and twenty seconds after that, Nino’s phone buzzed and he breathed a huge sigh of relief.

And then he read Alya’s response.

_No. Run._

Nino allowed himself exactly five seconds to feel completely, utterly devastated. And then he shoved everything he was feeling to the back of his mind and grabbed the backpack.

“Remy!” he shouted. “Get your sneakers on!” He slung the bag over his shoulder, grabbed his and Remy’s coats, ran to his wife’s second purse and fished out her taser, and then ran back across the family room, to the toy bin, and grabbed the heavy bat he’d stashed there a week earlier.

He took the stairs two at a time, and reached the top just as Remy was exiting his bedroom. “Time to go, buddy,” he said, tossing his son his coat. “Just like we practiced, okay?”

Remy’s eyes were wide. “Shouldn’t we wait for Mama?” he asked.

“We’ll meet up with her,” Nino lied, his heart ripping. “Let’s go.” Remy nodded, and they both ran. They’d almost reached the fire escape when there was a loud, angry knock at their front door. Remy stopped, confused. “Ignore it,” Nino told him. “ _Go_.”

 

* * *

 

They made it pretty far, all things considered.

Eventually, though, they wound up cornered. They’d been forced to duck down a small side alley, and now there were Order guards running up and down both the street they’d come from and the street it led to. They were crouched between some trash cans, but it was only a matter of time.

Nino considered his very limited options. Really, it wasn’t a choice at all. He shrugged off the backpack, put it on his son, and lifted a nearby manhole.

“Remy,” he whispered, “I’m gonna help you down, and then you’re going to pick a direction and run, do you understand? And you’re going to keep running as long as you can, and then you’re going to hide, got it? You’re either running or you’re hiding, and you’re not gonna let anybody see you. And you’re going to stay down there as long as you can-days, if you have to. Don’t come out until you need food and water. And then… and only then, you try to find someone you can trust. Okay?”

Nino loved his son, but he never would have called the boy _brave_ , exactly. He was somewhat prone to crying, and nightmares, and there were a lot of things he shied away from that most other kids his age actively embraced, like roller coasters, haunted houses, that sort of thing.

Remy listened to his father’s instructions silently, and it was clear that he understood he was not going to be meeting up with his mother, or seeing either of his parents again, for what might be a very long time. And his eyes grew wet, but he simply set his jaw and nodded firmly and did his best to keep his lower lip from quivering, and Nino knew in that moment he was looking at the bravest person he knew.

Nino hugged his son, kissed him, and helped him down. And then he replaced the manhole cover, stood up, and waited.

 

* * *

 

Nino took one guard out with the taser, and two more with the bat, which honestly was three better than he’d been expecting to do, given that he’d never actually been in a fight before. But there were ten more at least, and they were only trying to take him away at first but he wouldn’t go quietly, he wouldn’t stop fighting back as long as there was a chance he could hold them off, for even just a second longer delay them from continuing on after his son. So now they were trying to knock him out so they could drag him away unconscious, but somehow he just kept getting up.

Nino’s vision was starting to blur and fade when, quite suddenly, there was a huge flash of light, and a loud bang, and a sudden absence of violence. Nino blinked and squinted as he sat up slowly, trying to figure out what had happened, when he saw them.

The superheroes. Two of them he’d already seen on TV, the one with the shield strapped to his back and the one with the fan. The third he hadn’t seen before-she had a butterfly-shaped mask over her eyes, a dress, knee-high boots, elbow-length gloves, and every inch of her costume looked like it was trying to be every shade of purple at once. All together, the three of them looked to Nino like angels straight from heaven, sent to deliver him from evil.

And then they started talking, and the illusion was somewhat broken.

“Holy shit,” the purple one said with deep appreciation, “you took out _three_ of them!”

“Um.” Nino looked around, and instantly regretted moving. “You took out… ten?”

The hero waved a hand dismissively. “That’s not really a fair comparison, and anyway I wasn’t the one who-wait, where’s Remy?” She looked around frantically, and Nino gestured to the manhole. She rushed over, tossed the cover aside like it weighed nothing, and looked down. “Remy?” she called. She looked back at Nino. “Which way did he go?”

“I… I don’t…” Everything was starting to spin rather aggressively.

“Never mind.” The hero closed her eyes and concentrated, then pointed after a moment. “He went that way,” she told the others. “He’s _really_ far off, too.”

“I’m on it,” the teleporting one said. “You two stay here and take care of any more guards that show up.” She vanished, and the third one crouched down next to Nino, looking him in the eye.

“Hi,” he said gently. “I’m Terrapin, that’s Mariposa, and the one who just disappeared is Hera. We’re gonna get you and your son to safety.” He put a hand to Nino’s forehead, and suddenly Nino felt much better. He still ached all over, but the dizziness had gone and his vision had cleared. “Jesus, they really did a number on you.” Terrapin looked up at Mariposa. “Is it possible to have three concussions at once?”

Mariposa shrugged. “You’d know better than me, you’re the healer,” she said. “Actually, you’re really carrying this rescue mission overall, aren’t you? I can’t believe you took out ten guards with a _shield_.”

“Oh, well,” Terrapin said modestly, “they were all clustered together like that. Anyway, I can only use the shield with the knockout effect once per transformation, so don’t get too attached to it.” He turned his attention back to Nino. “You’re still in pretty rough shape,” he said, “so don’t move until Hera gets back.” Nino nodded; the adrenaline was starting to wear off.

A few minutes went by, and Terrapin looked over at Mariposa. “Hera’s taking longer than I would’ve expected. Can you sense her?” His partner nodded.

“Yeah, and Remy.” She rolled her eyes. “I should’ve gone with her, I’m pretty sure she’s gone past him at least three times by now.”

“I told him to hide,” Nino whispered.

“Oh,” Terrapin said. “That makes sense-we should’ve thought of that. But don’t worry, I’m sure Hera will find him before-”

Terrapin was cut off by a sudden flash of light, and the next thing Nino knew, he was looking at his best friend’s only son.

“What the-oh, _come on_ ,” Louis said, exasperated.

“What the hell just happened, Louis?” Mariposa asked angrily.

“I forgot about the timer, obviously. Stupid.”

“You-Louis. You were just. On _live television_. During a _mandatory broadcast_. And you are still capable of forgetting about your _timer_?”

“Yeah, well, we don’t all get timers that conveniently wait until _after_ all goals have been accomplished before they start, do we?” he shot back defensively.

“Are you-”

“Louis?” Nino interrupted. Louis looked back at him.

“Hi, Uncle Nino,” he said, resigned. Before Nino could say anything more, Hera reappeared, one hand firmly wrapped around the wrist of a very scared and angry Remy, who appeared to be trying to escape her grasp with all his might.

“-take you _back_ to-see? What did I say?” Hera was saying to Remy, annoyed. His face did a complete one-eighty as he looked around and saw his father a few meters away.

“Papa!” He rushed over and threw his arms around Nino. It was painful, but Nino hugged him back just as fiercely all the same.

“Sorry,” Hera continued, “I forgot what a good hider he is. And apparently our “After the broadcast everyone in the city will trust us completely” theory is going to take at least another few hours to kick in, but-” she stopped talking suddenly, noticing Louis. “Seriously?” she asked.

“It won’t happen again, okay?” Louis said, annoyed. “Can we just get them out of here so we can go and rescue Aunt Alya, or what?”

“Fine, fine, I’ll yell at you later,” Hera said. She walked over to Nino and Remy and knelt down, placing a hand on each of their shoulders. “Ready to go?” she asked. Nino nodded, and then they were gone.


	15. Emma

Emma had everyone back to the mansion in two quick trips, and Uncle Nino took no time in collapsing on the nearest couch. Remy quickly curled up under his father’s arm and closed his eyes.

“I’m getting my healing supplies for Uncle Nino,” Louis said. “One of you should stay here with him until I get back.”

“I need to find out if Grandma and Grandfather have figured out where to send me to rescue Aunt Alya yet,” Emma said. Dani flopped on the couch next to Nino in response.

“Sure,” she said, “I don’t mind hanging out here.”

“So who are you, Dani or Emma?” Nino asked. Dani raised an eyebrow. “It’s not the twin thing,” Nino added defensively. “Normally I have no problem telling you two apart, but-look, I _know_ you must be one of Adrien’s daughters, both of whom I have seen on at least a weekly basis for the last fourteen years, but honest to God, I am staring right at you and it’s like I’ve never seen you before in my life. It’s _freaky_.” Emma left the room before she could hear any more.

Emma could have teleported straight to her grandparents’ side, of course, but she’d been doing a lot of that today. Besides, she was pretty sure she could hear talking coming from the panic room, and conversations were a lot easier to eavesdrop on if you slowly walked up to them than if you teleported over instantaneously.

“-not saying that rescuing the reporter shouldn't still be our top priority,” Emma could hear Uncle Jonathan saying as she approached the open door down the hall. “Just that the odds they've _already_ cracked her are low, and evacuating would be premature. Truth compulsion is both a rare and tedious thing to pull off.”

“Oh, is that so?” Emma’s grandfather asked angrily. “So Adele was just _lucky_ , is that it?”

“Oh please, _please_ drag me into this,” Grandma Adele interrupted, her tone way more sarcastic than it had ever been in the presence of her grandchildren. “You know how much I love it when you two take the most traumatic thing that's ever happened to me and use it as an excuse to bicker.”

“I don’t know how many times I have to explain,” Jonathan said, “that preventing someone from lying and _compelling_ someone to tell you something they don’t want to tell you, are two _entirely different things_. And even if they _weren’t_ , the geis that was put on Adele would’ve taken at least a week to prepare. I don’t know why you asked for my opinion if you were just going to-”

“We’re back,” Emma said, sticking her head in the room. Uncle Jonathan was sitting at his usual book-swamped desk, Emma’s grandfather was standing near it, scowling, and their spouses were on the other side of the room, watching the news.

“Emma! How did it go?” her grandmother asked, rushing over.

“Great, we took out all the guards and got Uncle Nino and Remy. Nino’s pretty beat up, but Louis is taking care of him, and Remy’s fine. I mean, scared, but fine. Oh, but Nino knows about us now, Louis accidentally popped his timer. But that’ll be okay, right?”

Adele frowned. “It’s… not ideal,” she said. “But Alya already knows enough to get the entire family arrested, and we probably weren’t going to be able to rescue her family without them figuring out some of what’s going on.” She sighed. “We’ll manage. They’re safe, that’s what’s important.”

“What’s _important_ ,” Emma’s grandfather said impatiently, “is that the one person in the city who can lead the Order to the children is currently in their custody, and furthermore, we don’t know where they’re holding her _or_ how much information they’ve already managed to extract from her.”

Emma looked up at her grandmother. “You guys still don’t know where Aunt Alya is?” she asked. When they’d first heard that Alya had been arrested, Dani had instantly started scanning the city for her-but she’d picked up on Nino and Remy first, so the three of them had gone after those two, leaving the adults behind to try and figure out where, exactly, Alya was being held, based on the brief footage of her arrest.

“We think we’ve got the arrondissement figured out,” her uncle Ferd called over from the TV, “but past that, it looks like Dani’ll have to start scanning again.”

“Which could take _hours_ ,” Gabriel said.

“No, it won’t,” Adele insisted. “I’ll coach her through it.”

“But-”

“Gabriel,” Adele interrupted, her voice firm and steady. “We have time. We need to stay calm, keep our heads clear, and rescue Alya Lahiffe. We do _not_ need to panic and evacuate the mansion unnecessarily. If worst comes to worst, the mansion’s defenses can hold off the Order long enough for Emma to move us and the research.”

Gabriel’s scowl deepened slightly, then faded. “I suppose you’re right,” he said.

“Get your sister,” Adele said to Emma, who nodded and disappeared.

 

* * *

 

Scanning an entire arrondissement for a specific person’s location was an advanced technique, and Gabriel Agreste’s concern that it might take too long was not unfounded. But Dani had already gotten a feel for Alya’s emotional signature earlier that day-it would be drastically different now, of course, but it would help all the same-and the police stations were much emptier than they'd been yesterday. After less than an hour, she was pretty sure she'd found the correct station.

“Do you know the area well enough to get us there?” she asked Emma, pointing to it on a map of the city. Emma frowned.

“Not directly,” she said, “but...there.” She pointed at a spot about three blocks down. “I visit that bookstore a lot, I'm pretty sure I can get us to its back alley. Can you figure out if it's Aunt Alya from that far away?”

“Easy,” Dani said confidently. She held her hand out to Emma.

“Wait,” Adele said, looking at Emma. “You're sure no one will see you back there?

Emma nodded. “The store’s closed at this hour, and the back alley’s very closed off.”

“Well...okay. But come _right back_ if it's not her, got it?”

“Or if anything appears to be interfering with your teleportation,” their grandfather added.

“Or if there are too many guards surrounding her.”

“And come right back if she's already given us up,” their grandfather added, “and we’ll re-evaluate the rescue plan.”

“Fine, fine,” Dani said as Emma grabbed her hand, and they were gone.

“We’re just gonna ignore all that and go ahead and rescue Aunt Alya no matter what, right?” Emma asked as they landed in the dark and deserted alley without incident. Dani scoffed.

“Obviously,” she said, closing her eyes. A few seconds later she opened them. “It's her,” she said. “No guilt, no pain. I don't think they've even started trying to get anything out of her. She's out of her mind with worry, but that might just be because of Uncle Nino and Remy.”

“Should I just go in? Or should you make her a Champion, so she breaks herself out? I've never been in the building before, but five minutes of invisibility is probably enough time to get in, find her, and get out. Maybe going the Champion route is overkill-but on the other hand, maybe it would be better to empower people instead of going in ourselves whenever possible, it gives the Order less to target. But maybe-”

“I can't,” Dani interrupted suddenly, her eyes wide. “What the fuck?”

“What do you mean you _can't_?”

“I… I don't know how to describe it exactly, but the option to make Aunt Alya a Champion just isn't _there_. Wait a sec, let me scan the rest of the-yeah, it's just Aunt Alya.”

“Maybe it's because her emotions are too negative?”

Dani shook her head. “No, she's got a healthy amount of defiance and determination. She's brave, strong-it _should_ work.”

Emma sighed. “We can worry about it later. I’ll bring us both in, and you just lead the way.” Dani nodded and held her hand out. Emma took it and braced herself. “Okay...Rajji, Eyes Unseen!”

Once vanished, Emma and Dani walked out of the alley, looked down the main road towards the station, and teleported over, to a clear spot on the steps. From there, Emma looked inside, and a second later they were standing in the mostly deserted lobby.

Four minutes, fifty seconds left.

Dani pointed down a hallway, and led her sister along. Emma found herself wishing they could speak unheard as well-this would go faster, and be less risky, if Dani could have just told Emma right away which room Alya was in. Emma made a mental note to herself to read up on sign language and see if it would be of use. Of course, it might be awkward, since Emma had to hold Dani’s hand at all times in order to keep them both invisible, but presumably even rudimentary FSL would be somewhat helpful.

It was slow going through the precinct, the two of them walking as quietly as possible, Emma teleporting them past unopened doors as necessary, but finally Dani stopped outside a door. At this point they’d developed a _very_ basic form of silent communication, just enough for Dani to warn Emma where it was and wasn’t safe to teleport to in places unseen. Dani indicated that there were two people on the other side of the door, and gestured to the side of the room that was empty. A second later, they were in.

Two minutes, twenty-eight seconds left.

“-understand your reluctance to come forward, Mrs. Lahiffe, but the Order _is_ willing to be lenient in this area,” the officer in the room was saying as they appeared. He was standing over Alya, who was seated and handcuffed to a small table. “Perhaps you didn’t know anything-perhaps you simply told too much to the wrong person. Perhaps you’re not a traitor at all. And the Order is very forgiving towards those who assist us in the apprehension of dangerous vigilantes. If, however, you continue to remain silent about what you know, you _will_ be labeled a traitor, and I cannot guarantee your safety-or the safety of your family.”

Alya didn't have enough slack to lean all the way back in her seat, but she went as far back as she could as she looked up, eyebrows raised. “You can threaten my family all you want,” she said-calmly, though her wrists were shaking slightly, rattling the links of the cuffs, “but we both know if you had either of them you’d be using them against me already.”

The officer scowled. “We _do_ have your son,” he snapped.

“I'll believe it when I see it. Sorry.” Alya shrugged, but couldn't seem to summon the energy for an accompanying smirk. “I guess it's just the skeptical reporter in me.”

As the officer continued to threaten Alya, Dani looked at Emma and shot her a “What the hell are you waiting for?” look. Emma thought it would be better to wait until the officer left, if possible-the Order knew about her teleportation, but her invisibility might still be a secret. But she couldn't communicate that, so instead she pointed to the back of her head with her free hand, to her Miraculous. Dani glanced at it, and held up two fingers, waggling one up and down, to indicate one solid dot and one blinking dot left.

One minute, thirty-three seconds to go.

By the time the officer left, Emma’s last dot had been blinking for at least forty seconds, and Dani was shooting her death glares. The door closed, Alya dropped her cool composure and sagged in her chair, she felt a hand on her shoulder, and before she even had time to react to it she was-

-standing, uncuffed, in a rather busy-looking room with four adults and two superheroes.

She screamed, but only for a second.

“Shoot,” the superhero she recognized said, “I meant to go to the other room, with Uncle Ni-” she was cut off by a bright flash of light, and suddenly Alya was looking at Emma Agreste.

“Jeez,” the other superhero said, “First Louis, now you? Of the three of us I really thought you'd be the last to slip, just going by personalities.”

“Oh, like Uncle Nino wasn't going to tell her anyway. Anyway, unlike Louis, I wasn't _careless_ , I made a calculated decision that Aunt Alya finding out our identities was better than the Order finding out I've got invisibility powers.”

“Never mind all that,” Gabriel said, as Adele walked over and hugged them both. “How did it go?”

“Great,” Emma said. “We just waited for them to leave her alone in the room and we grabbed her.”

Adele frowned. “That sounds… easy.”

“Because it's a trap,” Uncle Jonathan said matter-of-factly from across the room.

Adele bit her lip. “I agree,” she said. “The Order knows you can teleport now, they should have had _some_ countermeasures in place.” She looked over at her brother. “Tracer spell?”

“Probably. Have Louis take a look at it, he should be able to see whatever it is. The wards on this place should block it long enough for him to break it.”

“I'll take her,” Emma volunteered, grabbing Alya’s hand and pulling her out of the room. Alya recovered her voice about ten steps down the hall.

“Remy-”

“We got him,” Emma said. “Uncle Nino too.”

Alya visibly relaxed, but kept walking. “So… today. That was you three?”

“Yeah.”

“Jesus, I-if I'd had any idea that your grandparents were talking about _you_ , I-what would your parents say?”

“Nothing particularly discouraging, I hope, unless they wanted to be giant hypocrites about it,” Emma said steadily. “Weren't they our age when they started fighting akumas?”

Before Alya could respond, they'd reached the room with Nino, Remy and Louis. Remy noticed them first. “Mama!” he shouted, leaping off the couch and sprinting into Alya’s arms. She caught him easily, and tears started to fall as she kissed his head over and over.

“Oh, baby,” she whispered. “Are you okay? Nobody hurt you?”

He shook his head. “No, but…” he trailed off and looked back at his father. Alya followed her son’s gaze and gasped in horror. “Jesus, Nino, what did they _do_ to you?”

“Nothing that won't heal,” Nino replied cheerfully. “It was worth it.” Alya sat next to him, still holding their son, and threw an arm around him, pressing her face into his shoulder.

“God, if anything had happened to either of you, I couldn't live with myself,” she murmured. Nino put an arm around Alya and Remy, and the three of them clung to each other silently for a moment.

“Louis,” Emma said softly to her brother, not wanting to interrupt the moment, “do you see anything weird about Aunt Alya’s energy?”

“No, I don't think- _oh_.” He squinted, then frowned. “Yeah, I see it now. What is that?”

“Uncle Jonathan thought it might be a tracer spell? But whatever it is, we need it off. Can you break it?”

Louis shrugged. “Maybe. I'll go get my stuff, see what Wayzz thinks.”

 

* * *

 

Louis wasn't sure how long breaking the spell would take, and the wards were considerably stronger inside the panic room, so ten minutes later Alya was patiently sitting inside it. She was watching her best friend’s son as he pulled a lot of weird-looking ingredients from various boxes and pouches, consulted an incredibly dusty book every other second, and muttered things to himself like, “Wait, which ingredient was supposed to be on fire?”

“How long have you been doing this, sweetie?” Alya asked, wondering how she could have possibly missed so much about the the Dupain-Cheng-Agreste family.

“Um… well, I started studying it when the Order showed up, but this is kind of my first big thing. But don't worry, I don't think it can go _too_ wrong.”

“Oh,” Alya said. “That's good.” She looked around the room. “What's that?” she asked, pointing to the back wall. Louis glanced over.

“Pictures of the spells the Order cast on Invasion Day,” he said. “The cluster on the left is what grabbed all the superheroes, the right is the giant barrier.”

“Really?” Alya asked, fascinated. “Can I just-” she started to get up, but her husband put a hand on her shoulder and gently pushed her back down in her seat.

“Alya,” he said gently, “let the kid work his magic first. You can interview everyone after he's done.”

She pouted. “Fine, fine,” she said. “But-” she froze as a pocket deep inside her jacket started vibrating. “Shoot,” she muttered, grabbing her phone out of her pocket and quickly shutting it off, “I forgot I still had that.”

“I'm surprised it wasn't confiscated,” Adele said. A familiar mischievous glint returned to Alya’s eyes.

“Yeah, for some reason they only wanted my decoy phone, go figure,” she said, grinning. “Can the Order trace this? Or do your wards or whatever protect it?”

“They can't trace it in here,” Adele said, “but they could tap it, which might be worse. Luckily, my brother-in-law has an affinity for runic magic, he can fix it right up.” She turned back towards the desk, where Jonathan and Ferd were in the middle of discussing something. “Ferd!” she shouted. He looked up over and headed over. Adele grabbed Alya’s phone out of her hand and tossed it to him. “Can you ward that?”

“Sure,” he said. “I'll get my chalk.”

“Wait,” Alya said, narrowing her eyes at him. “You look familiar.”

Ferd grinned. “I'm flattered you remember,” he said. “You interviewed me for your book, must have been twenty-five years ago or so?”

Alya’s face brightened. “Oh!” she said. “How’ve you been?”

“Can't complain,” Ferd said. “Except I married into this crazy family, and now they've got me committing treason on a weekly basis.” His grin widened. “Keeps me young, I guess.” He crossed the room to an abandoned table, Emma following close behind.

“You were in Aunt Alya’s book?” she asked.

“That's right,” her uncle said, grabbing a piece of chalk and drawing a huge circle right on the table’s surface. He placed the phone in the center, and then leaned over and started meticulously writing tiny symbols around the circle’s edge.

“The one she won the Londres for. The one that made her career.”

“That's the one.” Ferd obviously knew where Emma was going with this, but he didn't say anything else.

“The collection of touching, humanizing, stigma-shattering interviews with each and every akuma victim from the year that-”

“Mm hmm.”

“So you were akumatized. Back in 2016.”

“2015, actually, I was one of the earlier ones.”

“And… and you married Uncle Jonathan.”

Ferd kept writing, circling around the table slowly as he did so. “It's a pretty good story, if you ask me. Remind me to tell it to you one of these days, when the world isn't falling apart every five minutes.”

Emma took a moment to absorb this. “Why do I keep making the mistake,” she finally asked, “of thinking there’s some upper limit to how weird this family can get?”

Ferd smiled. “Don't worry, you’ll get used to it,” he said. “At some point this will all seem completely normal.”

Emma glanced back over at Aunt Alya and Louis, who as far as she could tell was now taking a large pinch of coriander seeds and dropping them on Alya’s head.

“That’s a scary thought,” Emma said.


	16. Danielle

“At the risk of sounding like a science-fiction engineer dumbing down a lot of technobabble with an overly simplistic analogy,” Jonathan was saying to Alya, “what we’re looking at here, basically, is a net.”

After about half an hour, Louis had finally declared Alya freed of any magical tracers that might lead the Order to her or the mansion. She’d immediately run over to Jonathan’s side of the room and demanded that he explain everything he was working on, which he was only too happy to do.

“A net?” she asked, looking intently at the pictures of the spells before her.

“Yeah-a spell that only grabbed superheroes would be, I mean, I can’t even think of how you’d define “superhero” rigidly enough for a spell like this. What this _actually_ did was monitor the magical energy output of everyone in Western Europe over the course of about a year, and grab everyone above a certain threshold. Everyone in this room was small enough to slip through, but Adrien and Marinette were big enough to get caught.”

“So you’re saying it didn’t just grab superheroes.”

“Nope. My guess is they were trying to grab anyone powerful enough to pose a threat. Granted, it’s a _very_ high threshold, so probably most of the people who were grabbed were superheroes, or at least people with superpowers. But it would have grabbed any exceptional or highly prolific magic users as well.”

“Huh.” Alya considered this for a moment. “What about supervillains?”

“Good question,” Jonathan said, sounding impressed. “I hadn’t thought of it, actually. And to be honest, I’m not actually up-to-date on who the major supervillains in other parts of Europe currently are. But if any were active for a long enough period during the past year… yeah, this spell would’ve grabbed them, too. Now, supervillains tend to not be active for nearly as long as their heroic counterparts, but I wouldn’t be surprised if more than a couple were grabbed as well.”

“Fascinating. And you can tell from all this where they were taken?”

“Well, hopefully, but that’s the part that’s going to take awhile, I’m afraid. Here, I’ll show you the map I’ve got so far.”

As their conversation continued, the rest of those in the room began to tune it out. Nino had just gotten back from moving Remy to an actual bed, Emma was struggling to keep her eyes open, Louis was going through more of the book he’d brought down for breaking Alya’s tracer, the remaining adults were watching the news for any sign that the Order might be closing in, and Dani was currently psyching herself up to approach her grandmother.

“Grandma, can I talk to you?” she finally asked quietly, looking around to make sure nobody else in the room was listening.

“Of course,” Adele said, stepping a little ways away from the others and dropping her voice. “Is something wrong?”

“I hope not, but… um.” Dani fiddled with her hands nervously. “Is there, like, an extra cooldown period on turning people into Champions that maybe nobody told me about?”

Adele frowned. “No-it’s once a transformation, but if you can transform again, you can make a new Champion.”

“Is there… is there any chance that Aunt Alya ever held a Miraculous?”

Adele’s eyes widened. “I really doubt it, darling, I think it would have come up at some point. Why do you ask?”

“Because-because I couldn’t make her a Champion. And it’s just Miraculous holders that are supposed to be immune, right? So I was hoping maybe she’d held one once, because otherwise… otherwise it means there’s something wrong with my powers.”

Adele relaxed. “Oh,” she said, somewhat sadly. She patted Dani’s shoulder. “There’s nothing wrong with your powers, sweetheart, you don’t need to worry.”

“Then why-”

“Being a Champion,” Adele said, “is quite literally a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

“I know,” Dani said. “But I’ve only ever made one Champion, Senator Ortoli. And Aunt Alya isn’t Senator Ortoli.”

“It’s not once per Miraculous holder,” her grandmother corrected her. “It’s just once, ever.”

“But…” Dani frowned. “But you stopped making Champions when Dad was a baby, which means you stopped making them when Aunt Alya was a baby.”

Adele sighed heavily. “It wasn’t me,” she said. It took a moment for the dots to connect, but then Dani’s eyes widened, her nerves and fear turned to frustration, and she groaned.

“Seriously?” she asked, annoyed. “Akumas count?”

“It’s not actually a different power, Champions and akumas,” Adele said gently. “It’s the same ability, so it counts either way.”

“But-” Dani looked over at the other side of the room, where Aunt Alya and Uncle Jonathan were looking at the wall of spell pictures and notes, deep in discussion, “but he akumatized, like, half the city!”

“That is a slight exaggeration,” her grandmother said, “but yes, I’m afraid there will be many people immune to your ability.”

“What, so… so it’s not bad enough that they were akumatized when they didn’t deserve it, but now they don’t get to be heroes even if they _do_ deserve it? That’s not fair!” Even as she was saying it, Dani could hear how childish and naive she sounded.

“No,” Adele agreed, “it certainly isn’t.”

 

* * *

 

“It looks like you three should be safe here for at least tonight,” Gabriel said to Alya and Nino, after the news reports had officially ended for the night, “but have you given any thought to where you want Emma to take you, when she gets you out of the city?”

Nino and Alya exchanged a look, and Alya bit her lip. “I can’t leave,” she said. She turned to her husband to look him straight in the eye. “You and Remy should get out of Paris, and it kills me to say I shouldn’t go with you, but I just _can’t_. I’ve almost got the makings of a real resistance, and so many pieces of it are only connected to me. It’s not exactly the kind of thing I can just hand off to someone else.”

Nino sighed. “You’re right,” he agreed, placing a hand on her shoulder. “But I’m staying, too.”

“Nino, no. Get out, stay with our son, keep him safe.” Alya looked at the side of her husband’s face, and lightly traced a finger over the edge of a bruise. “Like you kept him safe tonight.”

Nino shook his head. “I’ve been thinking about it all night,” he said. “If it were just about what I wanted, of course I’d stay with him. But you and I, we’re too recognizable, even outside of Paris. Remy will be safer in someone else’s care.”

Alya raised an eyebrow. “It's cute that you think you're as famous as I am,” she said. Nino rolled his eyes as he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled his wife into a hug.

“I know I'm not,” he said, “but I _have_ been recognized in public before. You know I’m right about this.” Alya looked up at Nino, then nodded and tightened her embrace.

“We could leave him with my sister,” Alya said after a moment. “I’m sure she’d take him in a heartbeat.”

“Which sister?”

“The only one that lives outside of Paris, who else?”

“Wait...Fiona? She’s got five kids to watch already!”

“Exactly,” Alya said patiently. “It’s perfect, nobody’s even going to notice when the number goes up from five to six. That’s only, what, a twenty percent increase in children?” Nino gave her a look. “Okay, but seriously-she lives in the middle of nowhere, her nearest neighbor is ten miles away, and she loves Remy like he was one of her own already. It’s a good fit.”

Nino considered this, then nodded. “You’re right,” he agreed. He sighed. “Now we just have to figure out where we’re going to stay.”

“But you guys could just stay here,” Dani said, looking over at her grandparents. “Right?” Gabriel and Adele exchanged an uncertain look.

“No, no,” Alya said immediately. “That’s too much to ask.”

“It’s not a question of too much,” Adele insisted. “You’ve done so much for this family, and that was before we did anything in return. It’s just…” she looked around the room. “Well, we’ve already got the new superheroes _and_ the spell research for locating the old ones under the same roof. Add the lynchpin of the fledgling rebellion, and the adage about keeping all your eggs in one basket comes to mind.”

Louis pouted slightly. “But it’s the most heavily fortified basket in the city,” he said.

“No, your grandmother’s right,” Alya said. “We can’t stay here. We’ll figure something else out.” She walked over to Louis and hugged him. “I’m sure you’ll be seeing a lot of us though, sweetie, don’t worry.”

 

* * *

 

Alya and Nino went through their options for places to lay low, eventually coming up with a list of friends who they could contact tomorrow. Alya immediately then started pouring over it, double and triple checking it, doing her best to think of any possible threats or risks that might come with approaching them. She’d been at this for a while, and the room had been silent for at least ten minutes, when she sat up suddenly.

“Hawkmoth,” she said, slightly frantically.

“What?” Jonathan replied, looking up from the book he’d been reading. Adele shot him a quick glare across the room.

“Hawkmoth,” Alya repeated. “He was never caught, and… and there was a _lot_ of speculation at the time that he learned Chat Noir’s identity when he was defeated. What if he did? And what if he’s still in Paris? Everyone knows the Order hasn’t figured out Ladybug and Chat Noir’s identities yet, what if… what if he tells the Order, for revenge? That would lead them straight here, the kids-”

“Nobody encourage her,” Nino said to the room in general. “Alya has a panic attack about Hawkmoth returning for vengeance about once a year. She’ll burn herself out of it in five to ten minutes and get back to actual brainstorming.”

“I do not-”

“Alya,” Nino said patiently, “you do this every time there’s a new threat. You start coming up with wild theories about how Hawkmoth could be behind it, or how he might go after Ladybug and Chat Noir while they’re distracted. He’s had nearly thirty years to take his revenge on Adrien if he’d learned his identity, so clearly he either didn’t learn Adrien’s identity or he doesn’t care about revenge. We have enough real concerns without worrying about thirty year old ghosts.”

“ _Maybe_ ,” Alya said angrily, “there’s a third option-that he _did_ learn Adrien’s identity and he _does_ want revenge, but without a Miraculous he’s been too scared to move against Ladybug and Chat Noir while they’re in power. But now they’re _not_ , are they? So what’s to stop him from-” Alya looked over at Adele suddenly. “Dani said you and Gabriel already knew, right? About Adrien? Did Adrien ever tell you if Hawkmoth learned his identity or not, the day Adrien and Marinette defeated him?”

During this entire exchange, everyone in the Agreste family had been pointedly avoiding looking at one another, or in Jonathan’s general direction. Adele started upon being addressed, and stared blankly at Alya for a good ten seconds. “Um,” she finally said. Alya’s eyes widened.

“He _did_ , didn’t he? I knew it! Okay, don’t panic, kids, we’re going to figure this out.” Alya stood up and started pacing.

“Nobody’s panicking, Aunt Alya,” Emma said, yawning. Alya looked at the three young superheroes, none of whom seemed particularly concerned, and rolled her eyes.

“Well, of course you’re not,” she said, “you didn’t live through it. But trust me, it was-”

“Okay, that’s it,” Jonathan said calmly, shutting his book with a loud, dull thud. “I’m not listening to another second of this. Mrs. Lahiffe-”

“ _Jonathan_ ,” Adele snapped, cutting him off.

“What? I thought the only reason you didn’t tell people thirty years ago was that you were worried about people tracing the dots back to Adrien’s identity, which she _already knows_. She also already knows about the kids, and presumably at least a dozen other major secrets that could get her killed. This, on the other hand, isn’t actually dangerous for her to know at all. It’s just… awkward. And if knowing gives her some peace of mind, it’s really the least I can do for her, isn’t it?”

Alya looked back and forth between Adele and Jonathan, confused. “What are you two talking about?” she asked.

“I’m Hawkmoth,” Jonathan said, before his sister could stop him. “Or, well, I was. If I wanted to be Hawkmoth again, I guess I’d have to steal the Miraculous back from Dani.”

Dani’s hand instantly flew up to her brooch, covering it protectively. “Not. Funny,” she said angrily.

Jonathan blinked. “Sorry,” he said. He turned back to Alya. “Anyway, I assure you I bear no ill will towards my nephew, his wife, or their family. If I did, everyone in this room would already be dead.” He opened his book again and went back to reading.

“You-” Alya stared at Jonathan silently for a while, clearly trying and failing to reconcile the image of the helpful, bookish septuagenarian before her with that of the fearsome villain that had so violently shaped the first year she’d lived in Paris. “Are you _sure_?” she asked, unthinking.

Jonathan looked up at Alya like he couldn’t quite believe he’d heard the question correctly. “Am I _sure_? Am I sure that I spent a year turning countless Parisians, including-just naming the people who happen to be in this room-yourself, your husband, and _my_ husband, into supervillains against their will, in an effort to steal magical artifacts that would bestow upon me godlike powers? Yes. Yes, I’m pretty sure that’s not the kind of thing you forget whether you did or not. It's not exactly like leaving the stove on.”

Alya’s jaw had dropped completely at this point. She looked over at Nino, who looked just as shocked as she felt, then back at Jonathan. “But… _why_?”

Jonathan glanced at his sister, then looked back at Alya. “I thought Adele was dead,” he said simply. “I was trying to bring her back.”

“We all thought Adele was dead,” Gabriel snapped from the other side of the room. “Somehow, you’re the only one that became a terrorist over it.”

“Well, maybe if my best friend hadn’t abandoned me right when I needed him most, after I begged him to help,” Jonathan said, his tone turning to ice, “the two of us working together might have come up with a better plan.”

“I cannot begin to imagine a worse plan than what you came up with. Doing _nothing_ would have been a far better plan.”

“Well, that approach certainly worked out fantastically for you,” Jonathan said bitterly. “I don't know why you’re not trying it again, now that Adrien’s missing.”

Ferd sidled up to Adele while this exchange took place. “Should we separate them?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she replied, “Jonathan did technically just called Gabriel his best friend, that feels like progress.”

“True.”

In unison, Gabriel and Jonathan looked over and glared at their better halves. Then Gabriel looked back at Jonathan, set his jaw, and abruptly left the room. Jonathan watched him go, then looked at Alya, who was watching intently. “Yes?” he asked.

“Don't get me wrong,” Alya said slowly, “the reporter in me is very, _very_ interested in whatever the hell that was about. But I find that, on a purely personal level, I really don't care at all about whatever your pathetic excuse was.”

Jonathan nodded. “That's fair,” he agreed, which just seemed to annoy Alya more. She narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms.

“You know if there were any justice in the world, you’d currently be rotting away in a maximum security prison somewhere,” she said levelly.

Jonathan shrugged. “Then I guess it’s lucky for me there isn’t any justice in the world,” he replied without missing a beat. He glanced back at the wall behind him, covered in his notes. “Lucky for your friends, too,” he added.


	17. Louis

“Pencils!” Adele said suddenly, in the middle of breakfast. “Do you kids have pencils?”

“Yes,” Emma said patiently, “we told you, we already have everything we need.”

Her grandmother took a deep breath and let it out. “Well, call me if you realize you're missing anything, and I’ll-”

“Grandma,” Dani interrupted, “it’s fine.”

“Right. Sorry.” They went back to eating, and this time Adele lasted about ten minutes before thinking of something else. “Oh! Pictures! Should I be taking pictures? Does your mother do that?”

“Not for a few years now, Grandma,” Louis said, and Adele’s face fell. “ _But_ ,” he added, “since she’s missing it, she’d probably appreciate it if you took some for her?”

“Oh, good-wait here, I’ll go get the camera.” Adele got up and ran off. The Agreste teens all exchanged a look in her absence, then looked in unison at their grandfather, who had not once looked up from his newspaper since they'd begun eating, and who seemed to be completely unfazed by his wife’s behavior.

“This is getting a little exhausting,” Emma said to her siblings in a whisper. “And that’s coming from someone who slept for, like, fifteen straight hours last week after all those rescue missions in a row.”

“Well, just suck it up for another twenty minutes,” Dani said. “I’m sure she’ll calm down after today.” They finished eating, and were in the middle of clearing their plates away when their grandmother returned.

“Okay, just, all of you stand together, over here, and… okay, smile… great, perfect.” Adele looked at the digital image and frowned after a moment. “Well… maybe one more, just in case.” Louis sighed, and Dani glared at him quickly before they both looked back and smiled. “Great,” Adele said, “that’s probably enough, right?”

“Yeah, I’m sure it’s great, Grandma, don’t worry,” Emma said. Her grandmother sighed.

“Sorry,” she said again. “It’s just, I only got one first day of school with your father, and by then he was almost seventeen. I don’t really know what I’m doing.”

“We know, Grandma,” Dani said quietly.

“There really isn’t anything else I’m supposed to be doing? Shouldn’t I, I don’t know, drive you over?”

“No, we always walk,” Louis said insistently.

“Right, well, I wouldn’t… I know it won’t be like other years, but I want it to be as close to normal as possible.” Adele looked over at her husband. “Gabriel? _Gabriel_.” He looked up. “Did you-when Adrien was the kids’ age, did you do anything or say anything for his first day of school?”

Gabriel considered the question. “I believe I said something along the lines of, ‘Adrien, I absolutely forbid you from attending school, no son of mine…’ and so on in that vein. Why?”

Adele rolled her eyes. “Never mind.” She sighed again, and looked at the propaganda playing silently on the television. “I can’t believe they only gave us forty-eight hour’s notice,” she muttered, annoyed.

“Well, it is almost a month late,” Louis pointed out. “School was due to start less than a week after the Occupation began-”

“Don’t you _dare_ call it “The Occupation” at school,” his grandfather interrupted, not looking up from his paper he’d gone back to reading. Louis frowned.

“But it _is_ an occupation,” he said, “and everyone calls it one. Nobody’s getting arrested just for that.”

“No,” Adele said, “your grandfather is right. I know it’ll be hard, but you three have _got_ to keep your heads down as civilians, understand? There’s going to be an Order guard stationed at the school, so no complaining, nothing that could be construed as defiance, and _definitely_ no sneaking off to do any superhero business, got it?” The three of them nodded, somewhat begrudgingly, and Adele hugged them one by one and kissed the tops of their heads.

 

* * *

 

The Agreste kids left the mansion as early as possible, with more than an extra thirty minutes to spare, and Louis quickly took the lead as they walked.

“This isn't the right way,” Emma said about ten minutes later, as Louis sped up and turned an unexpected corner.

“We have time,” he replied. “I just want to walk past something, it's not that far out of the way.” He offered no further explanation, but it didn't take his sisters long to realize where he was going-at which point they sped up as well, because they missed it, too.

A few blocks later, they reached the Tom & Sabine Boulangerie Patisserie. The lights were out, the door was padlocked, and there was a large, friendly sign hanging in the window. All three of them remembered their mother making it for her parents, about two months earlier. She'd gone all out-gorgeous calligraphy, the bakery’s logo in each corner, and adorable cartoons of Tom and Sabine around the edges.

_The Tom & Sabine Boulangerie Patisserie will be CLOSED for the month of August. We will be visiting family in Wenzhou, and reopening September 1st. We look forward to seeing you all again in the fall!_

Louis sighed. “They would have been back, what, three days after the Occupation began?”

“Yeah,” Emma said morosely.

“I know it’s not even close to the saddest story, about people getting stranded on one side or the other of the barrier,” Louis said.

“No, it isn't,” Dani agreed, but she also sounded miserable.

“And-look, don't get me wrong, I love Dad’s parents, and I'm really glad that we’re living with them, and obviously if we could only have one set of grandparents during all this, they're the ones that have the best shot of, you know, actually getting us through this alive.”

“Sure,” Emma agreed.

“Like, the Occupation was only a few hours old before they were coming up with plans and strategies and if it wasn't for that we might all be in jail or dead by now. But…”

“But Grandpa and Grandma Sabine would have baked cookies?” Dani suggested, shoving her hands deep in her pockets.

“ _Exactly_ ,” Louis said. The three of them stared at the bakery storefront in silence for another minute, lost in thought.

“Do you think they knew?” Emma asked. “About Mom being… you know?”

“Definitely,” Louis said at once. His sisters looked at him, surprised.

“How do you know?” Dani asked. “You didn't know that Dad’s parents knew.”

“Dad’s parents never acted like they knew anything,” Louis said. “But Mom’s parents-she dropped us off here a lot when we were little, remember?”

“Sure.”

“Well, most of the time it was for Ladybug stuff. And she'd always have some made up excuse, she'd be like, ‘Oh, Mom, Dad, can you watch the kids for an hour, I had a rush order come in and I need to work on it.’ And then Grandpa would wink at her, Grandma Sabine would immediately hug her and tell her to be safe, they'd _both_ say something about how proud they were, and once she'd left they'd put the news on and watch the live coverage of whatever was happening. Every. Single. Time.”

Dani and Emma took a moment to absorb this. “Were we just, like, incredibly unobservant?” Emma asked. Louis shrugged.

“They weren't magic though, right?” Dani asked. “That's just Dad’s side? It would be nice if _someone_ in the family was normal.”

Louis shook his head. “No, they were both normal. I mean, they’re really special, obviously, but not in any magic way.” He frowned. “Although…” Trailing off, he reached into one of his many pant pockets and pulled out a ring of keys, then unlocked the door.

“Why do you have a key to the bakery?” Emma asked.

“I have keys to everywhere,” Louis replied vaguely as he went inside.

“Well, that's comforting,” Dani muttered, as she and Emma followed close behind. Louis walked briskly through the store and to the back, where their grandparents’ personal living quarters were.

“Louis,” Emma said, as she and her sister did their best to keep up, “what are we _doing_ here?’

“I just remembered something,” Louis said, as he started up the stairs. “We were, I don’t know, nine, ten? And I was snooping around in the attic, and I found something-it didn’t make sense at the time, so I forgot about it, but now I realize it must have had some kind of magical energy signature that I was picking up on.” They reached the top of the stairs. Dani quickly stuck her head in their mother’s childhood bedroom, breathing in the scent of it, before closing the door and catching back up with the other two, who’d entered the attic.

Once inside, Louis began looking around, squinting. “Over here,” he said, after a few moments of scanning. They walked past a few stacks of boxes and various assorted items, and Louis stopped in front of a stack near the back. He reached inside the top box, and pulled out a smaller, much nicer looking box. It was wooden, thin and long. Louis opened it, and all three kids looked inside. There were three pendants, each one a wood carving of one of the kid’s Chinese name characters: 芳, 静, and 强.

“Wow,” Dani said reverently. “Those are gorgeous. Why were Grandpa and Grandma Sabine hiding them up here?”

Louis shrugged. He seemed less excited, now that they’d found what he was looking for. “I showed them to Grandma when I saw them,” he said. “She said her aunt made them, and that they were for when we were older.”

“So Mom’s family is magic, too?” Dani asked.

“I don’t think so. Grandma Sabine definitely wasn’t. It might have just been our great-great aunt and a few other distant relatives. And, look, don’t get too excited, these are barely magic at all.” He lifted his, the rightmost one, and squinted at it before continuing. “It’s just a really weak protection spell,” he said, sounding disappointed. “It’s nothing compared to the magic we’ve been dealing with lately. I doubt it could stand up to anything the Order’s got.” Louis sighed. “I’m sorry I dragged us all up here, I couldn’t remember how strong the signature was. I hoped they might actually be useful.”

Emma shrugged and grabbed the left one, putting it around her neck and tucking it under her shirt. “Every little bit helps, right?” she said cheerfully.

“Yeah,” Dani said, as she took the remaining pendant and put it on as well. “I feel safer already.” She hugged her brother and he gave her an appreciative half-grin before the three of them headed back to the world.


	18. Danielle

The Agreste teens were about three blocks away from school when Dani stopped suddenly and groaned, spotting an officer of the Order walking down the street in their direction. “Let’s go another way,” she said. Emma took her elbow and pulled her gently forward.

“We can’t avoid running into them forever, Dani,” she said.

“Wanna bet?” The officer was almost within hearing range now, and Dani sighed in defeat and started moving again.

“Morning, kids,” the officer greeted them warmly as he passed. “Headed to school?”

“Yes, sir,” Emma replied politely. The officer looked at the three of them, then looked back and forth between Emma and Dani for a second.

“Twins, huh?” he asked.

“No, sir,” Emma replied before Dani could stop her. The officer’s jovial demeanor vanished instantly.

“You kids think it’s funny to make fun of an officer of The Order, do you?” he asked. Emma’s eyes widened.

“No, sir,” she said, “I was just-”

“Identification. _Now_.” Without another word, the three of them handed their ID cards over. The officer looked at them and raised an eyebrow.

“Not twins, huh? Same face, same last name, same birthdate, and the same address, but you’re not-wait a minute.” He squinted at Louis’ ID, clearly very confused. About ten seconds later it clicked. “Oh! Triplets!”

“Yes, sir,” Emma said, relieved. The officer laughed.

“Sorry about that,” he said, “but you wouldn’t believe how many other kids your age like to give us a hard time, and I’ve found that being tough but fair right away is really the only thing that works.”

“My sister would never give an authority figure a hard time,” Dani said with all the sincerity she could muster.

“I’m very glad to hear that.” The officer started to hand the kids their IDs back, then grinned. “Hang on, how do I know you didn’t switch places, huh?” He clearly thought this was a very funny joke.

“You got me,” Louis said, “I’m actually Emma, that’s Louis.” The officer laughed, handed the three of them their ID cards back, and continued walking down the street. Once he’d turned another corner, Dani smacked both her siblings upside the head as hard as she could.

“Ow!”

“What the hell?”

“What part,” Dani asked, her voice low and angry, “of ‘keep your heads down’ was confusing to you two?”

“I was just answering his question honestly!” Emma protested.

“When an officer asks you a question, the correct answer is whatever ends the conversation the fastest, got it?” Dani turned to her brother. “And what were _you_ thinking, joking around with him?”

“I was defusing the situation!”

“You were giving him something to remember! We need to be as forgettable as possible to these people, do you two get that? If, God forbid, you accidentally detransform in public and he sees you for a split second, _before_ he would have just seen some anonymous teenager but _now_ he’s going to see the funny triplet with identical sisters! Which one do you think he’ll have an easier time tracking down in the city?” She resumed walking, much faster now, before either of her siblings could answer. Louis and Emma exchanged a glance, rolled their eyes in unison, and continued on after their sister.

 

* * *

 

Even for a first day at school, things were crazy. Evidently the school administration had gotten just as short a notice as everybody else that schools would be reopening, because there’d been no time to print out individual schedules for everyone. Instead, class assignments had been posted on a wall in the courtyard, and it seemed like every student enrolled in the school was crowded around it, all trying to read it at once.

About ten steps in, a girl that all three kids recognized, but only vaguely, threw her arms around Emma, her eyes red. “I heard about your dad,” she said, her voice shaking. “I’m _so_ sorry-I can’t believe it, you know?”

“Uh…” Emma shot a helpless look at Dani, who patted the girl on the back and gently pried her off her sister.

“Thanks,” Dani said, “we really appreciate it.” The girl nodded before hurrying off.

Louis took a deep breath. “I forgot Mom and Dad’s ‘accident’ would be new information to most of the students here,” he said.

“I didn’t,” Emma said, “but I was hoping the whole government overthrow thing might overshadow it.”

“Are you kidding?” Dani asked. “Dad was, like, everyone’s favorite teacher.” She sighed. “This is going to be exhausting.”

“Maybe it won’t be too-”

“I am _so sorry_ ,” another student none of them could name said, this one a boy a few grades above them. “Your dad was the best teacher this school ever had.”

“Oh, uh, thanks...man,” Louis said, and the kid nodded and walked away. “Okay, let’s just go figure out our classrooms and get to them as soon as possible, before every student in this place is coming up to us.” His sisters nodded in agreement, and they hurried over to the crowd in front of the assignment sheets, pushing as far into it as they could. When they could go no further, Dani got up on her toes.

“Who got Emma?” Louis asked. The school administration had learned, through trial and error, that there was really no _preventing_ Agreste shenanigans, but the best way to mitigate them was to 1) split Louis and Dani up, and 2) stick Emma with one of them and pray she’d have a calming influence more often than not. Dani squinted.

“You did,” she said. “You two are in Mr. Dubois’ class, and I’m over with Ms. Carmichael.”

“Great,” Emma said, grabbing Louis hand and heading for Dubois’ room. “See you at lunch.”

Dani pulled away from the crowd and started scanning it for her friends. After a minute, she spotted her friends Monique and Renee near the edge. The three of them had been fast friends ever since they’d tied for first place in their grade’s art show three years earlier. Dani hadn’t seen either of them in over two months-which wasn’t that long, objectively, but it felt like a lifetime. “Monique!” she shouted. “Renee!” Her friends turned towards the sound of her voice and waved her over. Dani ran up to them, throwing her arms around them both. “Oh, it’s so good to see you,” she said. Monique and Renee hugged her back tightly.

“I heard about your parents,” Monique said, and Renee nodded. “I’m so, so sorry, Dani. My parents, they said you’re welcome over at our place any time, whenever you need. You don’t even have to call ahead, just show up any hour of the day, no explanation needed, and there’s a place for you. My mother said to say that verbatim.”

Dani bit back a sob. “Okay,” she said softly. “Thanks.” She sighed. “It’s been a month, so it’s been getting… a little easier, not having them, but-thanks.” Dani took a deep breath and let it out before changing the subject. “I love your hair,” she told Monique.

“Isn’t it great?” Renee said.

“Oh, thanks,” Monique said, smiling. She’d had a short afro at the end of the last school year, but now she’d grown it out long enough to pull back into a puff, and she’d dyed a shock of pink up the left side.

“What class are you in?” Renee asked. “I’m with Durand.”

“Carmichael. Monique?”

“Oh, I haven’t asked anyone to look yet,” Monique said. “Neither of you happened to notice, did you?”

“No, but wait here, it’ll only take me a sec.” Dani ran to the edge of the crowd, scanned for Monique’s name, and ran back. “You’re with me,” she said, grinning. “Carmichael.”

Monique grinned back. “Awesome,” she said.

 

* * *

 

There were more beginning-of-the-year announcements than usual, unsurprisingly. One about Dani’s father, which garnered her looks of sympathy from the entire class in unison. The rest, for the most part, concerned the Order. There would be a guard stationed at the school full-time, and he’d be keeping an eye on all the classes, popping in unannounced throughout the day to observe. The history unit, which was supposed to cover the 20th and 21st centuries, was now starting with the Renaissance, because the Order hadn’t approved a curriculum on modern history yet. And of course, because they were starting a month late, there were various corners being cut from every subject, and breaks were being shortened, until they’d caught up. It was a testament to how shaken everybody was by the recent turn of events that not a single student so much as groaned at this news.

Dani spent most of the day nervously anticipating the appearance of the Order guard, but he didn’t show up until after lunch, less than two hours before the end of the day. Ms. Carmichael looked over as he entered, but didn't stop her lecture. The class did their best to ignore him as he observed their teacher for about ten minutes, then scanned the room slowly. It seemed he was satisfied and just about to leave, when his eyes fell on Dani’s desk and he narrowed his eyes. “What’s that?” he asked loudly, pointing. For a split, horrifying second Dani was certain he was pointing at her Miraculous-and then she realized he wasn't talking about her at all.

“That’s-” Ms. Carmichael started, but the guard cut her off.

“I asked her. What's that?”

“He's talking to you,” Dani muttered under her breath as the guard walked over.

“What? I-” Next to her, Monique blinked in surprise and took a breath to steady her nerves. “You mean my computer?” she asked the guard. “They said we were still allowed to use our computers.”

The guard reached their shared desk and stood right over it, looking down. “That doesn't look like a computer,” he said. “What are all those weird dots?”

Monique, of course, had been answering questions like this her entire life, but this was the first time she'd gotten one from someone she was truly afraid of, and her usual answers didn't come to her. “It… it's Braille,” she stuttered nervously. “You know, it’s…” she ran a finger over the display in demonstration. “You know?”

The guard looked at her. “You don't look blind,” he said.

“Um. Thank you?”

Frowning, the guard put a hand in front of her face and started waving it back and forth. Monique could obviously tell he was doing it, and in any other circumstance she would have physically slapped the hand away, but right now she was just frozen.

“She’s blind, jackass, not dead, she can feel you doing that,” Dani snapped before she could stop herself.

“Danielle! That's detention,” Ms. Carmichael said immediately as she walked over. “I am so sorry,” she said in a rush to the guard, “Danielle’s having a hard time at home lately, but that's no excuse, is it?” Dani’s teacher gave her a pointed look.

“No,” Dani mumbled. “Sorry.”

Ms. Carmichael sighed in relief. “Sir,” she said to the guard, “I have know Monique for years now, and I can assure you she’s been blind that entire time. Her textbooks are all Braille or audio, I send her communications coordinator copies of all the handouts so he can type them up for her, it’s all-”

“All right, all right,” the officer said. “I get the idea. I'm not crazy about a student typing things up in a code I can't read, though.”

Dani glanced at Monique; she was outright shaking now, so Dani reached under the desk and took her friend’s hand. If she was really being honest, she was doing it to calm her own fears as well. Monique squeezed, and seemed to appreciate the gesture. Danielle, however…

The second Dani took Monique’s hand, the fear she was feeling increased tenfold. It practically knocked the breath right out of her.

“I completely understand your concerns,” Ms. Carmichael was saying to the guard. “I can give you a copy of the alphabet if you'd like-and I can assure you she won't be sending notes to any of the other students here, she's the only one who uses it.”

Why, why would Dani be feeling _more_ afraid suddenly? Her teacher was handling the guard, everything was clearly going to be okay.

“Well… I'll talk to my boss about it,” the guard said. “It's fine for now.” The guard shot Dani a glare before turning around and leaving the classroom.

The second the door closed behind him, an enormous sigh of relief swept through the room. Ms. Carmichael dropped her friendly expression and actually glared at the closed door for a moment, but then she sighed and looked wearily at Dani. “Danielle,” she started.

“I know, I'm sorry-”

“I really don't know how many times giving you detention will work,” she continued, pinching the bridge of her nose, “before that man decides to start handing out punishments directly. And I can't do a damn thing about it if and when he does. So please, _please_ try to keep outbursts to a minimum.” Dani nodded silently, and her teacher went back to the front of the classroom and resumed her lecture.

Danielle couldn't focus on it at all. Her heart felt like it was beating a million times a minute, although admittedly she was feeling a lot better since the guard had left. But she was still overwhelmed by fear, anger, embarrassment… which, now that she was taking the time to reflect on it, made no sense either. Why would she be feeling embarrassed?

Dani glanced to her right. Monique had gone back to typing her notes on the lecture, and she'd mostly stopped shaking. Her head was bent down much further than usual, though, and there was an unfamiliar flush to her face.

Oh, no. No, no, no, not _now_.

But it was too late-once Dani had realized, she couldn't un-realize it. Because, of course, she wasn't actually personally feeling more scared at all. She was just feeling everybody _else’s_ fear, too.

Her goddamn empathy had picked now, of all times and places, to finally kick in.

Now that she’d figured out what was happening it was more bearable, at least. She could distinctly feel the placement of each signature around her, and it no longer seemed like everything was all crowded together in her head.

But on the other hand, she now knew exactly where each individual emotion was coming from.

Dani desperately wished she couldn't read Monique. It felt like a violation.

“I'm sorry,” Dani whispered under her breath.

“What? For what?” Monique asked, also in a whisper.

“I didn't-I wasn't thinking, when I-I was just reacting, I wasn't thinking about how it would affect you, if I antagonized the guard on your behalf. It was selfish.”

Monique nodded. “Thank you,” she said. Then, after a slight pause, “I still appreciated it. I mean, never do it again, obviously, but-thanks.”


	19. Emma

Emma and Louis were about five meters away from the door of their assigned classroom, and Emma was actually starting to think they’d make it, when she suddenly found herself being hugged again. It happened so fast she didn’t have a chance to identify the source until he spoke.

“I am so, so sorry,” Henri Lavillant-Couffaine said, and Emma immediately experienced several conflicting emotions at once.

Henri and Emma’s parents had all been friends back in collège, and continued to keep in touch as adults, so the two had encountered one another a handful of times growing up. However, Henri was a full grade above Emma, so before last year they hadn’t had much reason to interact at school. Then, last May, both their partners for the end-of-year science fair had bailed last-minute. Their teachers had decided that Emma was a strong enough student to compete with Henri’s grade instead of her own, and that the easiest solution would be to pair up the two loose ends. Henri had been perfectly nice about this, though privately he’d been a little worried about working with someone a full year behind in the curriculum.

Then Henri had spent about thirty seconds brainstorming with Emma, and that had been the end of any and all doubts. They’d spent a month working on their project, going over to each other’s houses a few times a week, and even though Emma was naturally bookish she’d never enjoyed schoolwork so much before. When they’d won, Henri had immediately hugged Emma and thanked her profusely. Emma, who generally did not care for hugs, had then spent at least a month idly wondering how she might go about getting a second one.

Goodness, if only she’d known it would be as easy as faking her parents’ deaths in the wake of the overthrow of the continent.

“Thanks, Henri,” Emma mumbled as she hugged him back, feeling both thrilled and incredibly guilty for feeling thrilled. Henri let her go and immediately hugged Louis just as tightly, and Emma remembered that Henri was very much the son of Rose Lavillant, the single most emotionally expressive person Emma had ever met in her entire life.

“If there’s anything I can do, or my family can do, just say the word,” Henri told them.

“Sure, man,” Louis said. “We appreciate it.”

“I, um… we found out yesterday, actually, and it was all my moms could talk about last night, and they were telling all these stories. So if you ever want to come over and listen to them talk about what your parents were like when they were our age, I’m sure they’d be more than happy to have you.”

“Oh… oh, yeah, that sounds amazing,” Emma said, and Louis nodded.

“They actually-my moms, they said that they used your parents as character references for both adoptions. I mean, they had a lot of character references I think, but it’s still partly thanks to your parents that we’re a family, so… well, it means a lot, so when I say ‘if there’s anything we can do’ I mean _anything_ , okay?” Emma nodded wordlessly. Her eyes were still dry, and she was determined to keep them that way all day, but Henri’s weren’t, which wasn’t helping. Fortunately Henri picked that moment to check the time, and he sighed. “I gotta go, but I’ll see you around?”

“Sure,” Emma managed to say as he was leaving. She looked at Louis once Henri was gone. “Mom and Dad never told us that,” she said. “I wonder why?”

Louis raised an eyebrow. “Out of everything Mom and Dad never told us,” he said wryly, “ _that’s_ what you’re getting hung up on?” Emma shrugged, and they both took the last few steps into their classroom.

Louis immediately found two of his many friends and walked over to sit beside one of them, leaving Emma to scan the rest of the double desks for an open space by herself. Unlike her siblings, Emma didn’t have much of a social life through school. Almost all her friends were online, through various forums and websites like the Ladyblog. This had never bothered Emma, who had always considered it just as social and valid as real-life interaction. Since the Occupation, however, almost all her favorite websites had been either heavily censored or shut down entirely, leaving Emma without any real way of getting in touch with any of her online friends.

After a month, it was hard not to feel lonely.

There were still plenty of open seats, next to students that had always been perfectly nice to Emma. But Emma knew that the second she sat down next to any of them, the first thing out of their mouth would be “I’m so sorry” and she really didn’t want to hear it again. So Emma sat down next to a girl she didn't recognize at all, a heavyset blonde with glasses who was currently flipping through a book. “Hi,” Emma said, holding her hand out. “I'm Emma.”

“Jenny,” the girl said, closing the book and shaking her hand.

“You're new, right?” Emma asked, and Jenny nodded. “Where did you go last year?”

“Toronto,” Jenny said, not elaborating.

“Oh,” Emma said, surprised. “When did you move to Paris?”

For a moment, Jenny didn't say anything, just stared down at the surface of their shared desk. “Oh my God,” she muttered. “I moved to Paris, didn't I?”

“Pardon?”

“I-look, I think the teacher is going to make an announcement about it before class starts, but since you asked,” Jenny hesitated for a moment, and then it all came out in a rush. “I was supposed to be here for a week, okay? It was a school trip, and the _day_ we were supposed to fly back, well.” She gestured vaguely. “So we've been here ever since, the ten of us and our French teacher and her husband, they’re the chaperones, and I mean, they've been amazing about it all, and when they announced that the schools were reopening she called all the ones she could track down and this one offered to enroll us all and give her a job.”

“Oh… oh, wow,” Emma said, as Jenny paused to take a breath.

“My school,” Jenny continued, “they offer these foreign language trips every summer. And they do two French ones, right? One to Quebec and one to Paris-and I've gone on the Quebec one for like the past three years, but this year I _begged_ my parents to let me go on the Paris one. And they were all, ‘Oh, no sweetie, it's so much more expensive, what's wrong with Montreal, it's the same opportunity’ but I was relentless, right, and I finally wore them down into agreeing to let me come here this year, they called it an early combination birthday/Christmas present, I was ecstatic, and now I guess I'm stuck here forever, I haven't been able to talk to my parents in a month, and I'm probably going to die under this stupid magical barrier before I ever get to talk to them again.” Jenny took a deep breath and let it out. She seemed a lot calmer after getting all that off her chest, but she looked at Emma apologetically. “Sorry,” Jenny said. “That was way too much, wasn't it?”

“Nah,” Emma said, and Jenny smiled. “I mean, don't get me wrong, it’s the saddest thing I've heard all day, but it's fine.”

“Really?” Jenny asked. “The saddest thing you've heard all day? Because all the other students here I've talked to this morning are pretty worked up over some English teacher that died, that sounded a lot sadder than my thing.”

“Oh. Um. I'd already heard about that,” Emma said, praying there wouldn’t be any follow-up questions.

“Was he your teacher?”

“Yeah-well, not for English, but for Chinese.”

Jenny nodded. “That sucks,” she said.

“Uh huh,” Emma agreed, knowing that Jenny was going to find out eventually and wondering how long she could afford to put off telling her before it became just too weird that she hadn’t said anything earlier. But, as it turned out, the decision was made for her.

“Emma!” A girl Emma didn’t know very well ran up to her desk and leaned over. “I was just talking to your brother, I am _so sorry_ ,” she said emphatically.

“Oh. Thanks.” Emma hoped the girl would go away, but instead she turned to Jenny.

“Emma’s dad,” she said, “was the greatest teacher I’ve ever had. He made everything so fun and easy, you know? Like, he used to give extra credit on language essays for puns, and he’d-”

“Thanks, Collette,” Emma interrupted.

“I just can’t believe he’s _gone_.”

“Yeah. Um, I think class is about to start, so-”

“Oh, right. Well, again, I’m really sorry, and I’m really going to miss him.” Collette patted Emma’s hand sympathetically before rushing to her desk. Sighing, Emma turned to Jenny, whose mouth was hanging slightly open.

“Please don’t,” Emma said preemptively.

“I just-I can’t believe you let me sit here complaining that I can’t _talk_ to my parents, when yours-”

“Look,” Emma interrupted. “I lost them a month ago.” She still couldn’t quite bring herself to lie outright and say they’d died, though she knew it would come to that eventually. “So it’s not as fresh and new for me as it is for everyone else here, you know? It’s finally starting to get easier. Or at least, it had been, and then twenty minutes ago I arrived at school and everyone’s crying and hugging me and telling me how sorry they are, and it’s just making it new and awful all over again. And it’s been less than half an hour and already I could _really_ use a break from that. So I sat down next to you, someone who didn’t actually know my parents. And you immediately started telling me about _your_ problems, and honest to God it made me feel way better than anything else anybody’s said to me this morning.”

“Oh. Gosh.” Jenny smiled hesitantly. “Glad I could help? I, uh, guess I’ll keep complaining, then.”

Emma grinned. “Thanks,” she said.

 

* * *

 

For the rest of the day, Emma and Jenny talked about everything and nothing-school, books, all the places in Paris that hadn’t been completely ruined by the Occupation that Jenny needed to check out ASAP, that sort of thing. Jenny, it turned out, was an excellent distraction. She had a million questions since she was new to both the country and its school system, she was extremely well-read and damn near fluent in French, and she was blunt and didn’t seem to believe in segues, so she was extremely easy to talk to. By lunch, Emma was actually enjoying herself, despite everything, and by the end of the day they’d already made tentative plans for the weekend.

“That's another girl from my group, Sarah,” Jenny told Emma, as the two of them made their way through the courtyard after classes were over. Jenny waved the girl over. “Sarah, this is Emma, she’s in my class and-what?” she asked, as Sarah did a double-take at Emma.

“Um… sorry, sorry,” Sarah said. “It's just-you look _exactly_ like the girl in my class that called the guy from the Order a jackass.”

Emma's jaw dropped completely, and for a moment she was speechless. “Dani did _what_?” she demanded.

“Oh, is that her-”

“Unbelievable! Oh my God, and you should have heard her lecturing me and our brother on the way to school this morning. ‘Grandma said to keep our heads down,’ ha! Like Grandma wasn't 90% talking _just_ to her.”  Emma groaned in exasperation, and briefly made a strangling motion with her hands. “Out of curiosity, do you have any idea why?”

“Um, he was doing this,” Sarah said, waving her hand closely in front of Emma’s nose, “to some blind girl.”

Instantly, Emma’s exasperation vanished. “ _Oh_ ,” she said. “He was picking on Monique? Well… okay. I guess I can't fault her too much then. I mean, Jesus. Still, Grandma’s gonna kill her.” Jenny and Sarah spoke for a few more minutes, and then parted ways as Emma and Jenny exited the building.

Across the street, Louis was sitting on a ledge and reading a book. “Hey,” Emma called as she walked over, and he looked up. “Waiting for Dani?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I know we don't usually, but it seems wrong to let her walk home alone, what with… well, everything.”

“Yeah,” Emma agreed. She turned to Jenny. “It was nice meeting you,” she said. “See you tomorrow?”

“Um… could I wait with you two, actually?” Jenny asked, somewhat shyly. “I don't really have anything better to do, and curfew isn't until eight, and the hotel’s just a block away.”

Emma smiled. “That would be nice,” she said, and they sat down next to Louis. He went back to his book as the two girls began talking. About five minutes later, Emma noticed Monique leaving and called her over.

“Hi, Emma, Louis,” Monique said as she approached. “I heard about your parents, I'm so sorry.”

“Thanks,” Emma said. She glanced over at Louis, who for some inexplicable reason was staring at Monique like he'd never seen her before in his life, and she dug her elbow into his side.

“Ow-oh, thanks Monique,” he said, his voice oddly strained.

“Are you guys waiting for Dani?”

“Yeah,” Emma said, “but you don't have to.”

“She's in detention because of me,” Monique said, and Emma rolled her eyes.

“She's in detention because she's Dani,” Emma insisted. “I, um, heard about it-how are you doing?”

Monique shrugged. “Fine,” she said. “Kind of sick of people asking me that, honestly.”

“Yeah, we know the feeling,” Louis muttered.

“Seriously,” Jenny agreed, and Monique jumped slightly.

“Oh, sorry,” Emma said, “I should have introduced you-Jenny, this is our friend Monique, she and Dani have been best friends since forever. Monique, this is Jenny, she’s one of the Canadians.”

“Oh,” Monique said. She switched her cane over from her right hand to her left and held her right out for Jenny to shake. “Wow, this is a really depressing ledge, huh? Mind if I join it?”

“Go for it,” Emma said. Monique sat down right next to Louis, who flushed slightly as she did so. Emma raised an eyebrow at him, but he ignored her.

“Is that guard nearby?” Monique asked. The other three looked around.

“No,” Louis said finally. “He must still be inside.”

Monique nodded. “I hate being polite to them,” she said flatly. “It might all be bearable if you could just tell them to fuck off, you know? They've got all the power, what do they care if we tell them to fuck off?”

“Yeah,” Louis agreed.

“I didn't even think about it, I was just-he said I didn't look blind and I _thanked_ him. Fucking asshole.” After a split second of hesitation, Louis put an arm around Monique’s shoulders and hugged. She leaned against him, sighing. They sat in silence for a while, and then Jenny spoke up.

“It's-okay, I've been trying to complain about this to the others in my group and nobody gets it, so maybe I'm just crazy, but it's… it's just _dumb_ that the magic barrier blocks cell phone calls to the outside but not inside, right?”

“Oh my God, _yes_ , that has been driving me insane,” Emma said emphatically.

“Thank you!”

“Why? Why is that weird?” Louis asked.

“They're cell phones! Even if you're calling someone right next to you, the signal still has to go to _space_ and back. If the barrier blocks cell phone signals it should be blocking _all_ calls.”

Monique shrugged. “It's magic, it doesn't have to make sense,” she said.

“Yes, it does,” Emma insisted. “Everything has to make sense. Including magic.”

Monique burst out laughing. “Nothing makes sense,” she said, but she was smiling as she said it.


	20. Louis

Dani’s detention was supposed to last an hour, but she appeared outside only forty-five minutes after class had ended. She noticed her siblings waiting for her across the street and flew down the steps, taking them two or three at a time, and quickly joined them.

“You two didn’t have to wait for me,” she said as she approached. “And Monique, you _really_ didn’t have to wait for me. And… sorry, who are you?”

“Jenny,” Jenny said, offering her hand. “I’m in Emma’s class.”

“Cool.” Dani looked back at her siblings. “We should probably get going, Grandma was pretty insistent on us coming home right away.” Emma and Louis nodded and got up.

“Remember what I said before,” Monique said, hugging Dani goodbye. “Any time you need to come over, just show up. That goes for all three of you,” she added, turning towards Emma and Louis.

“Thanks,” Louis said. Emma bid Jenny goodbye and the three Agrestes parted ways with their friends. They walked in silence for a few minutes before Emma spoke up.

“So… they let you out early. That’s a first.”

“Yeah,” Dani said, “The teacher wasn’t actually mad at me at all. Scared, yes, mad, no. She was so pissed about the guard, it took all her self-control to not, like, outright hug me for standing up to him. So once he left she let me go.” Emma and Louis both stopped walking and stared at Dani. She turned back to them. “What?”

“That was… highly specific,” Emma said suspiciously.

“Wait,” Louis said. He squinted at Dani, then walked up to her and picked up her hand. A second later he dropped it, as though it had burned him. “Oh my God, you got it,” he said, excited.

“You can see it?” Dani asked. “On my, like, energy or whatever?”

Louis nodded. “Yeah, I don’t know how I missed it before. Congrats.” Dani grinned, and Emma narrowed her eyes at the two of them as the three continued to walk home.

“Are we talking about Dani’s civilian powers?” she asked in a near-whisper. Dani nodded. “Wow. Is that why you lost it at the guard?”

“Well… no,” Dani admitted. “It kicked in right after I’d already snapped at him.”

“Oh,” Emma said. “Too bad, it would’ve been a good excuse for Grandma. But this’ll distract her, at least.” Dani nodded. “So… so you can tell what Louis and I are feeling right now?”

“I can tell what everybody within a city block is feeling right now,” Dani said. “It’s crazy. But yes, you two I can read pretty directly.”

“So what am I feeling?” Emma asked.

“Mostly you’re feeling apprehensive,” Dani said, “I assume because you’re uncomfortable with the idea of anyone knowing you have actual emotions.” Emma rolled her eyes.

“What about me?” Louis asked.

“You’re thinking about _Monique_ ,” Dani said in a drawn-out singsong. Louis immediately turned bright red.

“You can’t know that,” he said defensively. “You’re not a mind-reader, you just feel emotions. You can’t tell _who_ I’m thinking about.”

“Yeah,” Dani admitted, “but I could sense how you felt when she was around just now, and that doesn’t seem to have worn off entirely, has it?”

“Oh my God,” Emma said, incredulous, “you have a crush on Dani’s best friend? Is that why you were being so _weird_ around her earlier?”

“No, no it is not,” Louis insisted.

“You were being weird around her?” Dani asked. Louis groaned.

“Okay, look,” he said. “I haven't-my ability to read energy, it's gotten roughly a billion times better in the past month, and I haven't really been around people my own age in that time, except for you two. So I didn't realize until today, that people’s energy can be, like… attractive.”

“Really?” Emma asked.

“Yeah.” He didn't sound particularly happy about it. “I guess I'll get used to it, but today was incredibly distracting.” He let out a humorless laugh. “Like teenage sexuality wasn't already a goddamn minefield, right?”

“Yeah, no kidding,” Emma agreed. Dani shrugged.

“I guess,” she said. “So that's why you were being weird around Monique? Her energy is…sexy?”

“No-I mean, it is, but-and for the record that is not at all, like, even a little how I’d phrase it. But no, Monique is, um.” Louis paused for a while, and the three of them walked in silence while Louis’ sisters patiently waited for him to continue. “She's compatible with the Bee Miraculous,” he finally said. “Actually, that’s grossly understating it. She’d be really, _really_ good for it.” There was a very long silence after this revelation.

“Seriously?” Dani finally asked, practically jumping with excitement.

“Are you going to give it to her?” Emma asked, in a much more reserved tone.

“I don't know,” Louis said.

“What? Why not?” Dani demanded. “Because she’s-”

“ _No_ ,” Louis interrupted preemptively. “It doesn't have anything to do with her. If I need a new hero, I promise, she's at the top of the list. But… but Wayzz made a lot of really good points about keeping a few Miraculouses in reserve. And I only have two, not counting Mom and Dad’s, which obviously I'm not giving to anybody else. And… we don't _need_ another superhero. We're holding our own. I know we haven't exactly made much progress, but I don't know that another hero would fix that.” The three of them considered this for a while.

“You don't think we've made progress?” Emma finally asked.

Louis shrugged. “Do you? We still don't know where Mom and Dad are, we still don't know where the power source for the shield is, or _what_ it is, and the Order’s grip on the city has only gotten stronger.”

Emma kicked a pebble down the street. “It's only been a month,” she said defensively. “Mom and Dad took a whole year to take down their first threat, and that was one guy. We have to defeat an army.”

“Ugh,” Dani groaned, “this better not take a year.”

 

* * *

 

The three of them entered the mansion to see their grandmother pacing nervously in the foyer. Their uncle was leaning against the bannister, watching from a slight distance. They both looked over as the door opened.

“Told you,” Jonathan said immediately. “They're fine.”

“You three are almost an hour late,” their grandmother said, folding her arms. “I was very clear, I wanted you to come straight home right after class let out. I didn’t know if you’d gotten in trouble, or if you’d gotten dragged into superhero business, you didn’t _call_ , I had no idea if it was safe to call you or if you were in some situation where it might be dangerous for your phones to ring. I have been worried sick. So?”

“We were just catching up with friends,” Louis said before his sisters could answer. Adele raised an eyebrow, and the three of them all shrank a bit under her gaze.

“Do you maybe want to try that again?” Adele asked. “Keeping in mind this time that I am perfectly aware of when people are lying to me?”

Dani sighed. “I got detention,” she said, before her siblings could try covering for her any more. Her grandmother’s jaw dropped.

“Your _first day_? How?”

“I, uh,” Dani grabbed one arm nervously, “might have insulted the guard from the Order.” Before Adele could react, Jonathan snorted, and his sister whirled around to glare at him.

“Not. Helpful,” she snapped.

“Sorry, sorry,” he said, though he didn't look it. “I'm just remembering that time when you were seventeen and I got dragged into your principal’s office because you’d called your science teacher-what was it? A fascist toad?”

“The key difference being,” Adele said pointedly, “that I was not insulting an _actual real-life fascist_.” Adele turned back to Dani and took a deep breath. “Okay. First of all, I want to make it perfectly clear that I _do not care_ what provoked you, because there is _no excuse_ -”

“He was picking on Dani’s best friend. For being blind,” Emma interrupted. Adele blinked.

“That… is admittedly a lot more despicable than I imagined, but the point stands. You three have got to understand this, okay? You fight the Order _as superheroes_. That’s it. As civilians your only job is to protect your identities and not draw attention to yourselves. You three are still in a lot of danger as superheroes, but you have magic invulnerability protecting you. Your weakest point is your real-life identities. I cannot stress enough how important keeping your identities a secret is. Do you understand?” The three of them nodded silently, and their grandmother let out a sigh. “Alright. Well… Danielle, you’re still in huge trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?” Dani asked.

“I… will discuss it with your grandfather and get back to you on that. But, just… big, huge trouble. Honestly, I don’t know how you-”

“Dani got her empathy,” Louis interrupted in a rush. His grandmother immediately stopped talking, stunned.

“Louis!” Dani snapped.

“What? Look, you only get to tell her once, why not use it to distract her from being mad at you?”

“I am not distracted,” Adele said defensively. “I am still _extremely_ cross, and you… you…” she sighed in defeat, “you can tell I'm lying now, can't you?” Dani nodded, and her grandmother pulled her into a hug, all traces of her anger gone. “You’re still in big trouble, though,” she said tenderly.

 

* * *

 

Hours later, Louis entered the upstairs library and was surprised to find Dani already there, lying on a couch and staring at the ceiling. “What're you doing here?” She looked over, startled.

“What are _you_ doing here?”

“Uh,” Louis pointed across the room, at the Manet that currently hid the dormant Miraculouses. “I was gonna try communing with the Bee Miraculous, maybe figure out what to do about Monique.”

“Oh. Well, good luck with that. I guess I'll go find another one of the hundred rooms in this place to be alone in.” She got up and started for the door.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Louis asked. Dani turned around, shrugging.

“Not much to talk about. Being an empath out of transformation is just taking some getting used to, that's all. It’s really different. As Mariposa, I have total control over it. I can focus it, I can turn it up and down. If I don't want to violate someone's privacy, I don't. But as a civilian, I can't shut it off, or even direct it. If someone's feeling something, I know, whether I want to or not. But I guess it’ll seem normal eventually, right?”

“Talk to Grandma,” Louis suggested. “She's been an empath for, what, fifty years now?”

Dani paused. “I don't want to be around Grandma right now,” she mumbled.

Louis frowned. “Why not?”

“Because being an empath is weird enough, and being an empath around _another_ empath is… it creates, like, this feedback loop, and I just don't want to deal with it. Like, this afternoon when she said she'd get back to me about how much trouble I'm in for mouthing off, right? She has _no fucking clue_ how she's going to punish me. She's not even mad at me, she's just scared, and she feels so _lost_ , Louis. And I know it because I'm an empath, and I’m pretty sure she knows that I know it because _she’s_ an empath, and I honestly don't know how to deal with any of that. Do I just, like, pretend I can't tell, or what?” Dani sighed, aggravated.

“Oh,” Louis said. “Yeah, that sounds… frustrating. I guess the Butterfly Miraculous usually stays with someone for life, or at least it doesn't get passed on for a while after a holder retires. Two empaths in one family is probably pretty rare.”

“There are _three_ empaths in this family,” Dani corrected, sounding very annoyed about it.

“Oh, yeah.” Louis hesitated. “So… Grandma feels lost?”

“Can you blame her?” Dani asked. “She's suddenly responsible for three teenagers, right when we get new superpowers, in the middle of an occupation. She hasn't had to parent an actual kid in like twenty five years, and even then she was only parenting _Dad_. Even Emma gets into trouble more often than Dad did. We’re not… _easy_ , are we?” Louis didn't disagree. “And we’re fighting an army now, and her son is missing and all she wants is to keep us _alive_ until we get him back, and that should be a really low bar, but it isn't, is it? Not anymore.” She dropped her gaze and kicked one foot against the other. “Anyway, I’d prefer to just be as far away from other people right now, just until I stop feeling so overstimulated, so I’m gonna leave. Good luck with your thing.”

“Thanks,” Louis said, and his sister left the room. Sighing, Louis turned back to the Manet and walked over to it. He moved the painting aside, keyed in the code to the safe, opened it, and pulled out the ornate box holding the Miraculouses. He carried it over to a small table, sat down next to it, and opened the lid.

His gaze lingered for a moment on the two major Miraculouses. The Ladybug earrings and the Black Cat ring, sitting together in the center, yin and yang. Waiting. Even without touching them, Louis could sense that the kwami within were distraught, confused. He wished he had something, anything, that he could tell them, any new information about the whereabouts or wellbeing of their holders, but he didn’t, so there was no point in communing with either of them right now. Instead, he reached for the comb on the edge. It wasn’t difficult to avoid activating it, because it wasn’t suited to him. He closed his fingers around the Miraculous, shut his eyes, and concentrated.

 _Yes?_ While dormant, the kwami were mere shadows of themselves. Their personalities tended to be very muted, but their essential core was still accessible.

 _There’s a girl,_ Louis thought. _You’d like her. She’d like you. You’d make an amazing team. But I don’t know if now is the time._

 _Is there a job to do?_ the kwami asked, almost instantly.

_Yes. Well… there’s a goal._

_That’s not the same._

_I know._

_Come back when there’s a job._ The kwami fell pointedly silent. A little stunned, Louis opened his eyes and put the comb back in its place, before closing up the box and shutting it back in the safe.

Louis sat back down, thinking about Monique and the Miraculous she’d be so good for. It still felt wrong to keep it from her, like they belonged together. But Louis knew that was partly his own Miraculous at work, which compelled him to seek out worthy individuals to become heroes. Part of his job was to resist that impulse if necessary. There were plenty of good reasons to leave the Miraculous right where it was. The Bee kwami was right-there wasn’t a job that he specifically needed Monique for. And like Wayzz had said, there was a danger in having too many Miraculouses active at once. There was no guaranteeing the Order wasn't already working on some way to neutralize the new superheroes, after all. If Louis gave Monique a Miraculous right away, and the Order cast another spell like the one they’d cast a month ago, he'd lose four heroes instead of three.

This felt like his first test as the new Guardian, and Louis didn't feel at all ready for it.

After another half hour of deliberating, Louis finally got up and walked across the room to a small desk, grabbed a pen, and scribbled a note on the pad of paper lying on its surface. He tore the page off, folded it in half, and left the library. He then made his way through the mansion, down the giant staircase, and to his grandfather’s study. Gabriel was currently sitting at his desk, reviewing some documents from his meeting earlier that day with the Citizen’s Council. He looked up as Louis entered. “Yes?”

“Do you have an envelope?” His grandfather opened a drawer, pulled out an envelope, and handed it to Louis. Louis shoved the paper inside, sealed it, then held it up. “Okay,” he said, “this is in case you lose all three of us, right? In case Paris is ever out of superheroes again. Inside this is the code to the safe. Um, flip the order of the numbers and add one to each digit-I know it's not the hardest cipher to crack, but it’ll probably be good enough, right? Anyway, under that is the name and address of a young woman who’s very, very well suited to the Bee Miraculous. So if me and Emma and Dani get captured, or… or worse… then you open this, get the Miraculous out of the safe, and give it to her. But don't read it before then.”

“Understood,” his grandfather said. He held his hand out expectantly. Louis handed him the envelope, and his grandfather brusquely opened a desk drawer and dropped the envelope as far back in it as possible before closing it. Gabriel then went back to reading his document as though nothing had just happened. It was a level of unquestioning obedience that Louis had never in a million years expected from his grandfather, of all people, and it took him a moment to recover from the shock of it.

“You don't, um… have any questions or anything?”

“No,” his grandfather said, continuing to read. “You were very clear, thank you.”

Louis started to leave, then turned around. “Do you…” His grandfather looked up. “Do you think it's what the old Guardian would have done?”

Gabriel raised an eyebrow. “I don't think I'd bother asking myself a question like that, if I were in your position.”

Louis nodded slowly. “Right,” he said.


	21. Prisoner Oh-Three-Eight

Five-Two-One sidled up to the fence between the two courtyards, leaned against it, and waited. About three minutes later, Oh-Two-Three joined him from the other side. “¿Puedo ayudarle?” she asked. She was feeling slightly exhausted, preemptively, because Five-Two-One could be a bit much sometimes. But on the other hand, he spoke Spanish, which Oh-Two-Three strongly preferred over English, so that was nice.

“You guys are the ones who stole the book, right?” Five-Two-One asked in Spanish.

“Oh,” Three said, relaxing. “You want the book. Yeah, we don’t have it anymore.”

“I don’t-”

“We all finished it, then we gave it to the Fours, then they all finished it, now the Twos have it, I think the Sevens called dibs after that so you’ll have to talk to them about getting in line, there might already be another group after them, we’re not really in charge of it at this point-”

“I don’t want the damn book,” Five-Two-One snapped. Oh-Two-Three raised an eyebrow.

“What, you’re too good for literally the only piece of entertainment anyone has in here? Is it because it’s a romance novel? It’s surprisingly good, actually. Admittedly it’s the only book I can remember ever reading, but-”

“Why are all Zeroes impossible to talk to? I don’t care about the book, I just want to know if you’d be up for stealing something else.”

“Oh. That depends on what it is.”

“You know the guard with the tiny personal radio? She’s always got it clipped to her belt and she listens to it with headphones when she’s supposed to be out here paying attention to all of us? I want that radio.”

Three considered this. “I think that might be missed more than the book was,” she finally said.

“Granted, but unlike the stupid book, this is actually important. I have a guy who thinks he can, with some very minor hacking, use it to listen in on the guards’ walkie talkie radio frequency.”

Oh-Two-Three’s eyes widened in shock. “Wow,” she said, after a stunned pause. “Yeah, that would be… big. Fine, I’ll talk to Eight, see if she thinks she can pull off another-”

“ _Eight’s_ your pickpocket?” Five-Two-One asked, annoyed.

“What’s wrong with Eight?”

“She’s always hanging around our Six. Or, well, the closest to hanging around anyone can pull off in here, anyway. We agreed to stick to our own groups as much as possible.”

“Oh, let them be.” Oh-Two-Three glanced over at Eight, who was a ways away lying on the grass with her head in Seven’s lap. Then she looked over at the courtyard on the other side of the fence. “Speaking of, where is Five-Three-Six?”

“Solitary. Again.”

“Oh.” That explained Eight’s current mood. “Well, I’ll see what I can do about your radio, okay?”

Five-Two-One’s expression softened, just a bit. “I appreciate it,” he said.

 

* * *

 

A week and a half later, the two of them met at the fence again. They leaned against it, not talking, for about two minutes. Then, from the other side of the courtyard, Seven made eye contact with Three, and Three nodded at her ever so slightly. Seven flashed her a grin before putting on an angry expression and started loudly shouting and shoving Four. The fight escalated quickly, and it wasn’t long before the two guards on their side ran over to break it up. Just then, the planned fight on the Fives’ side broke out. Once all four guards were distracted, Oh-Two-Three quickly pulled the radio out from under her shirt and deftly tossed it over the fence. Five-Two-One caught it easily and shoved it under his own shirt. He nodded at Three.

“Nice doing business with you,” he said, and Three nodded back at him before they both walked off.

It didn’t take long for things to settle down, but Oh-Three-Eight forced herself to wait another ten minutes or so before walking over to the fence. Soon after, Five-Three-Six joined her. “I heard you pulled off another big score,” he said, grinning appreciatively.

“Oh my God, it was so easy,” Eight told him. “It was like these hands were born to steal small objects.” She looked down at said hands, then looked up and off into the distance dramatically. “No wonder society had to lock me away in here,” she said solemnly. “I’m too dangerous to be around normal people.” Six laughed.

“Well, I’m impressed,” he said. “Good work.” He pressed the knuckles of his fist against the fence and Eight looked at it, confused.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Fist bump?”

“Through the fence?”

“Best I can offer, I’m afraid.” Eight made a fist and pressed it against the fence, lining it up with Six’s fist perfectly. She smiled.

 

* * *

 

About a week later, the first actual escape plan was beginning to take form.

“I noticed it when I was on cleaning detail down by the docks,” Oh-Two-Four told the others in hushed tones at breakfast one morning. Oh-Two-Four was Dutch, as far as they could tell, but her English was great, and Oh-Three-Six was translating for Oh-One-Two, who only spoke German. “The boats all have this electrical panel, and there’s _just_ enough room for one of us to fit in there. The panel can only be replaced from the outside, so two of us would have to go, and one would have to put the panel back and return, but if we could get down there in the middle of the night without being spotted, I bet the stowaway would make it to the mainland before her absence was noticed.”

Oh-Two-Three nodded. “That’s incredible, Four,” she said, and Four smiled. Oh-Two-Three hadn’t exactly been democratically elected the leader of their little group, but none of the others had protested her stepping into the role, and it seemed to come naturally to her. She had a way of making the rest of them feel competent and appreciated.

“How do we decide who goes?” Oh-Three-Six asked. They looked at one another in silence for a few seconds. Then, one by one, they all looked at Oh-One-One. The young girl bristled.

“Why me?” she asked defensively.

“Because you’re, what, twelve? Thirteen? You have no business being in here in the first place,” Three said patiently. One rolled her eyes. This was a common point of contention, actually. Oh-One-One was significantly younger than the rest of them, which made everyone else very protective of her, which made her annoyed and resentful. She frequently insisted on being treated just like any other prisoner, but so far the only people inclined to do so were the guards.

“None of us have any business being here,” One said. “Besides, you have no idea how old I am.”

“You’re clearly the youngest-”

“You don’t know that,” One said defensively. “For all you know, I’m older than the rest of you combined.”

Three raised an eyebrow. “I think it’s safe to say you’re not.”

“Maybe I’m a vampire,” One continued. “Maybe I’m thousands of years old, and I was locked away in here because I ate one too many virgins in order to maintain my eternal youth and beauty.” Seven snorted, and Three sighed. “You can’t prove I’m not,” One insisted.

“I’ve seen you go outside, One. Without bursting into flames.”

“She does sunburn more easily than the rest of us, though,” Seven pointed out.

“Yeah!”

Three closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. “I wish I could say that’s the stupidest theory I’ve heard since waking up in this nightmare, but I think we all know it isn’t. Moving on. Next step is to try and find out what the supply boat schedules are, and work on figuring out how to get out of our cells at night. Then we can break our resident immortal vampire out of here.”

“But-”

“It’s not up for discussion, One,” Three said firmly.

“Ugh,” One groaned. “Fine.”

 

* * *

 

“Aww, your boyfriend’s waiting for you,” Oh-Two-Seven said to her cellmate as they entered the courtyard. She pointed with one hand to the fence as she threw her other arm around Eight’s shoulders.

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Eight said defensively. “First of all, I’ve had a kid, so I’m probably married-”

Seven scoffed. “Please. It doesn’t count if you can’t remember them. What happens in amnesia prison stays in amnesia prison.”

“Which brings me to my second of all- _nothing happens_ in amnesia prison. It’s not really dating if all you can do is talk, is it?”

Seven shrugged. “Okay, fine. He’s not your boyfriend, and your little chats at the fence aren’t dates. So I guess I’m not crashing anything if I tag along, am I?” She waved at Five-Three-Six as they approached. “Six! How’ve you been?”

Five-Three-Six seemed surprised to see her, but happy enough at the additional company. “Not bad,” he said. “I’ve gone a whole two weeks without getting thrown in solitary, it’s a new record.” He grinned proudly.

Eight bit her lip. “I wish you wouldn’t get into trouble so much,” she said softly, and Six’s smile faded.

“Oh, it’s fine,” he said reassuringly. “I can handle anything they throw at me. You gotta… you gotta keep pushing back, just a little, you know? Just enough so you have some idea of who you are.” There was a moment of silence.

“Speaking of which,” Seven said, “Eight tells me you still haven’t figured out what you were, you know, back before all this. I thought I’d offer my services, I’m _really_ good at it. I figured out that Three was a doctor-”

“Everyone figured that out,” Eight interrupted.

“And that Eight here was a chef-”

“You’re a chef?” Six asked. “I can see that. Do you think you wore, like, the cute hat and everything?”

“And I figured out that I’m a computer programmer,” Seven finished, as Eight blushed, “so I can definitely figure out whatever your thing is. First things first, what languages do you know?”

“Just French and English,” Six said. “I’m pretty sure French was my first language but I’m fluent in English, too.”

“That’s it?” Seven asked. “Sprichst du Deutsch? Pratar du svenska?”

“No and no,” Six said. “Just French and English. Oh, and my roommate’s been teaching me German Sign Language, but I didn’t know any when I woke up here so that doesn’t count.”

“Sign language? Really?”

“Just a couple of phrases so far,” Six said. “Let’s see, I’ve got ‘Hello’, ‘How are you?’,” he signed along, then signed a third phrase without translating it.

“What’s that?” Eight asked.

“Um… I’m pretty sure it’s ‘I’m deaf, asshole’, so I don’t think knowing it is going to do me a ton of good, but my roommate sure gets a lot of use out of it with the guards.”

Seven grinned, then looked at Eight. “His roommate teaches _him_ a cool new language, why don’t you teach me Chinese?”

“Because, one, you already know four languages, which is more than enough. And two, I know, like, seventeen words total in Chinese. Here, I’ll teach you both everything I know right now in thirty seconds. Nǐ hǎo. Zuì jìn hào mǎ? Xièxie. Yî, èr, sān, sì, wǔ, lìu… um…” Eight frowned, trying to think of the next number.

“Qī, bā, jiǔ, shí,” Six finished. Seven and Eight stared at him, jaws slightly dropped. He blinked, surprised.

“You know Chinese?” Seven asked. Six shrugged, still a little shocked at himself.

“I can count to ten, at least. Let me think about it.” He was silent for a full minute. “No,” he finally said, “I know a _lot_ more than that. I… yeah, I might actually be fluent in Chinese.” He grinned.

“Wow,” Seven said. “What are the odds? Me and Eight were just wondering if-”

“Eight and I,” Six corrected. Seven raised an eyebrow.

“Excuse me?”

“It’s ‘Eight and I were wondering’, ‘Eight and I’ is the subject of the sentence but you used the object pronoun instead of the subject one.”

Seven and Eight stared at him blankly for a moment, and then Seven spoke. “Hey, Six,” she said casually, “what’s, um… like in the sentence, ‘I had been saying’, what kind of verb is that?”

“Past perfect progressive,” Six said, as though it were obvious.

“Ha!” Seven pointed at him triumphantly. “You’re a _teacher_.”

Six considered this. “You really think so?”

“Yeah, definitely, nobody else would know that.” Seven stretched her arms up over her head. “Well, looks like my work here is done,” she said smugly, “so I’ll let you two have the rest of the overlap time to yourselves.” She walked off towards the other side of the yard, waving at Four as she went, leaving Six and Eight alone together. Eight watched her leave, then looked back at Six.

“She seems like a fun roommate,” Six said.

“Yeah,” Eight agreed. “This place would be a lot worse without her.” She looked up at Six. “It’d be a lot worse without you, too,” she added shyly, and Six blushed.

 

* * *

 

They continued talking for as long as they were able, but as usual it felt like no time at all before Six’s group was called in. Eight still had another hour in the yard herself, so once Six had disappeared from sight she turned back to her side of things and looked around. Normally she’d just hang out with her roommate, but Seven was still in the middle of some discussion with Four, so Eight kept scanning. She almost missed One, uncharacteristically off by herself, near the corner of the yard, lying down and looking up at the clouds. Eight walked over impulsively.

“How’s it going?” she asked in English, standing over One and looking down. One scowled, and Eight noticed that her eyes were red. “One, are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” One said, annoyed. Eight sat down on the grass beside her.

“One, you can talk to me about anything, you know? I’m always here for you.”

“You’re not my mother, Eight,” One snapped.

Eight raised an eyebrow. “We don’t know that,” she said, and One let out a small laugh despite herself. Eight took her hand gently, and One sighed, sitting up.

“Okay,” she said to Eight. “I… it’s not anything new. This place is getting to me, that’s all.” Eight nodded. “I just… I just _miss_ ,” she said, a hint of raw desperation in her voice.

“Miss what?” Eight asked, though she already understood exactly what One meant.

“I don’t know. That’s the problem. I’m filled with this missing, but I don’t know who for. I don’t know the first thing about them. Is it my mother? My father? A sister? A boyfriend? A best friend? I have no idea. But I know, I just _know_ , that somewhere out there there’s someone I’m missing right now, and if they were here everything would be better, everything might make sense. If only I could remember them, I could at least imagine them being here, you know? I would know what they’d say, what they’d do to make me feel better. There’d be some comfort in that.”

“Oh, ma chérie,” Eight said, her native tongue coming to her unbidden. One leaned against her, and Eight wrapped an arm around the girl and started stroking her hair gently.

“I guess I could just imagine whatever I want,” One continued, “but…” she took a deep breath. “What if I imagine someone, just to get through this, and then at the end of everything I actually get my memories back-and they don’t exist? What would that mean?” She sighed. “At least you know the person you miss is your kid.”

“True,” Eight said, although she, too, was terrified of accidentally building in her mind a child that didn’t exist. She continued to stroke One’s hair. Eight couldn't remember ever doing this, but it came so naturally to her, it hurt to think about. She tried not to wonder how many times she’d actually done this before. She tried not to wonder if her baby was as old as One yet.

One sniffed and rubbed away the few tears that had managed to escape. “Don’t tell the others,” she mumbled, and Eight nodded and kissed the top of One’s head.

“Of course not,” Eight said gently.


	22. Emma

“Are you sick?”

Yawning, Emma opened her eyes slowly to see her siblings both hovering over her. “Huh?”

“It’s, like, eleven thirty,” Dani said.

“So? It’s Saturday.” Emma rolled back onto her side and closed her eyes.

“Yeah, but you _never_ sleep in on the weekends,” Louis said. “That’s Dani’s job. Dani is awake before you are, Emma. It’s weird and scary and we just want to make sure you’re not dying, that’s all.”

Groaning, Emma sat up. “Do you two have any idea how many kilometers I’ve covered in the past week?” she asked, exasperated. “We had four rescue missions. _Four_. Nearly twenty prisoners rescued. All of them needing to be teleported _first_ out of the city and _then_ to whatever safe destination they could think of. Just getting them out of the city is, like, three hundred kilometers. One way. So there and back, grabbing them two at a time, that’s six thousand kilometers. And _then_ I have to teleport each of them individually at least another hundred kilometers, sometimes a lot more. Three people this week needed to get somewhere that required a double-jump because it was outside of my insanely huge radius. But let’s be conservative and say everyone goes two hundred kilometers, only those trips are all one at a time because everyone’s going somewhere different, so that’s two hundred times two times twenty, which is eight thousand kilometers. That means that this week I have teleported roughly fourteen thousand kilometers, and I know it’s instantaneous but it actually is something of an energy drain, okay? So yes, it is Saturday, I’m sleeping in, I think I’ve earned it.” She grabbed her pillow, fell back dramatically, and covered her face with it.

“Okay, she’s yelling math at us,” Louis said, “so I guess she can’t be too sick. That’s a relief.”

“Go away,” Emma shouted into her pillow.

“There’s a mandatory broadcast in half an hour,” Dani told her.

“Then come get me in twenty-nine minutes,” Emma replied.

 

* * *

 

“Have they said what it’s about yet?” Emma asked, mostly awake, as she entered the living room. The rest of the family was already seated around the television, which was on but silently, displaying only the words “STAND BY”. Emma’s grandmother handed her a mug of coffee as she sat down.

“Not yet,” Louis said. “It’s live from London, that’s all we know so far.”

“London?” Emma asked, sinking back into the cushions. “Is it Carew?”

“I doubt it,” her grandfather replied dryly. “Our illustrious ruler’s personal broadcasts tend to be accompanied by much more… _pomp_.”

“Man, I hope I get to punch that guy in the face,” Dani said, cracking her knuckles. “Just once, before this is all over. Is that too much to ask for?”

“He's a crazy powerful magician,” Louis said. “You probably don't want to get within punching distance. Get a Champion to do it instead.”

“Ugh, where's the fun in that?”

Before Louis could answer, the standby screen cleared and footage of a reporter started playing. “Good morning,” she said. “This is Denise Mathers, reporting live from Buckingham Palace. The local time is ten fifty-eight, and I am told that any minute we will be joined by none other than His Royal Highness Prince Stephen of Edinburgh, accompanied by his mother, Her Royal Highness Princess Sophia, Duchess of Edinburgh, heir to the throne of the United Kingdom. Prince Stephen will be making a very important announcement that I’m sure we’re all eager to hear.”

“Oh _no_ ,” Dani said, obviously devastated. “They got to Prince Stephen?”

“I didn’t even think they’d bother,” Emma said. All real political leaders and figureheads, including Princess Sophia, had caved to demands from the Order to issue statements publicly denouncing their superheroes weeks ago. Emma had stopped expecting to hear any more such statements. “He’s only third in line to a figurehead position, and he’s underage.”

“He had a personal relationship with Pyra,” Emma’s grandmother said softly. “That must mean something to them.”

“It sure as hell meant something to _me_ ,” Dani said, still upset. She started biting a nail, until Louis put an arm around her shoulders and hugged. A moment later, Prince Stephen appeared at the edge of the screen, walking slowly towards the podium behind the reporter, his mother close behind him. The crowds before him fell silent, along with those watching inside the Agreste mansion.

As he reached the podium, Emma was suddenly struck by how much _older_ the prince seemed than herself and her siblings, even though they were about the same age. She wondered how he’d managed to hold out so much longer than all the adults in western Europe placed under the same pressure. She wondered what it was that had finally broken him, and shivered.

“My fellow countrymen,” the prince began, his voice subdued but steady. “Thank you for coming here today, for being with me as I issue this very important statement. In the past six weeks, our country has undergone… radical progress. We have entered a new age of peace and prosperity. With that transition, however, there has been instability. Uncertainty. It is important, for the safety and stability of this land, that its leaders promote unity. With unity comes strength. As one of your future leaders, I apologize humbly for my failure to promote that unity before now.” He took a deep breath as he flipped a page and continued.

“The young woman known as Caroline Danvers,” the prince’s voice broke on ‘Caroline’, but just barely, “also known as the vigilante Pyra, has been formally denounced by both my grandfather the King, and my mother, for her unlawful, anarchistic actions, and the danger she once posed to the throne, before she was rightfully neutralized by our unifier and leader, Thaddeus Carew. It is now my turn to say, in the interest of giving hope and reassurances to the British people…” Stephen took a deep breath, and suddenly began to speak much faster, “that Caroline Danvers is the greatest patriot this Kingdom has ever known, its greatest friend and defender, and I have every faith that she will return one day, to save us from-” The broadcast cut off abruptly. About halfway through the prince’s speech going off the rails, guards had started moving in to stop him. In the instant before the screen went dark, Emma had seen Princess Sophia throw herself over her son’s body, shielding him from blows that were certain to land.

For a solid minute, nobody said anything, or even moved from staring at the blank screen.

“I can’t believe that just happened,” Dani finally said, sighing in relief.

“ _I_ can’t believe the Order hasn’t learned how to use thirty second delays on their live broadcasts,” Emma said. “Didn’t they learn their lesson when we interrupted their stupid public execution?”

“They were overconfident,” Emma’s grandfather said. “This is a good sign. It means the Order is still prone to underestimating fourteen year olds.”

 

* * *

 

Many hours later, after nightfall, the teens were hanging out in one of the more comfortable sitting rooms on the first floor, when they heard loud, heavy footsteps come down the main staircase. Investigating as a single unit, they entered the foyer to see their uncle bidding farewell to their grandmother. Jonathan buttoned up his coat and threw a scarf around his neck as Adele glanced at a nearby clock, frowning. “Are you sure you don’t want to spend the night?” she asked nervously. “Curfew’s in thirty minutes.”

“It only takes me twenty to get home,” her brother replied. “Besides, I’ve been here for three days straight, fallen asleep sitting at that desk upstairs for two nights in a row. I’m taking the next twelve hours off, clearing my head, sleeping in my own bed. Plus if I don’t go home tonight Ferd’s gonna-”

“Someone’s coming,” Dani said suddenly, looking over at a very specific point on the wall, in the direction of the sidewalk outside. Adele and Jonathan both looked at her, surprised, before Adele hurried over to the security monitors.

“It’s an official Order vehicle,” Adele said, tense. She raised her voice. “Gabriel?” By the time her husband appeared, there was a knock at the door. Gabriel glanced at the monitor.

“I know him,” Gabriel said, extremely displeased. “He’s an interrogator.” He glanced at Jonathan, his eyes falling on the messenger bag over his shoulder. “Is there anything incriminating in that?” he asked. Jonathan rolled his eyes.

“I’m not a complete idiot, Gabriel. I don’t even take anything out of that room upstairs. I certainly don’t go walking around the streets of Paris carrying things that could get me shot.”

“Pity,” Gabriel muttered. He started walking to the door, ranting under his breath. “What the hell is the point of going to all those damn council meetings if the Order is just going to be sending interrogators into my own home without-” He opened the door, his face instantly transforming from one of indignation and worry to a relaxed politeness. “Frederick! To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?”

“Hello, Gabriel, sorry to bother you at home,” the officer said, entering the foyer. “This simply couldn’t wait.”

“Well then, I’ll dispense with the pleasantries and show you to my office. We can conduct whatever it is you-”

“Actually,” Frederick interrupted, “I’m here to speak to your grandchildren.”

For a brief, almost indetectable moment, Gabriel clenched his jaw. Before Frederick had time to register it, it was over. “Of course,” Gabriel said smoothly. “Not without myself present, I presume?”

“Oh, of course not,” Frederick said, looking over at the rest of the people assembled. “Your kids don’t have anything to worry ab-” He caught sight of Jonathan. “I don’t believe we’ve met,” he said.

“This is my wife’s brother, Jonathan Dumas,” Gabriel said, and Jonathan approached. “He was just leaving.”

“Right,” Jonathan agreed, “curfew’s in half an hour, and it’s a bit of a walk. But it was nice meeting you.” Jonathan offered his hand to the agent.

“Actually,” Frederick said pleasantly, “I’d prefer it if nobody left the building until my inquiries are complete. I doubt you’ll be necessary to the proceedings, but it's standard protocol. I'm sure you understand.” He smiled at Jonathan, who dropped his hand slowly.

“Of course,” Jonathan said, smiling back. “I’m happy to help in whatever way I can.”

“Excellent.” Frederick looked around. “Is there anywhere all… seven of us can sit comfortably?”

A few minutes later they were all sitting in one of the larger dens, one with several oversized couches. Emma, Dani and Louis were all packed next to each other, their grandmother next to them. Gabriel remained standing behind them, and Jonathan had grabbed an armchair on the other side of the room. Frederick sat across from the kids on another couch, and immediately proceeded to pull out a file containing several papers and open it.

“To begin,” he said, “which of you three is…” he glanced down, “LadyNoir082830?”

Dani and Louis immediately looked at Emma, who raised her hand slowly. “That’s, um, that’s my ID on the Ladyblog forums,” she said nervously. “How did you-”

“We tracked the IP address to your old house,” he explained. Emma did her best not to react, but on the inside she froze. Had the Order figured out she’d downloaded those screencaps of their spells, before the forum had been shut down? They couldn’t have-she hadn’t posted anything personally, even in response. She’d just saved the pictures to her phone. They couldn't detect that, right?

“I haven’t been on there in ages,” Emma said defensively. “You guys shut it down. You said it was a breeding ground for pro-vigilante sentiment.”

“We did, and it was,” Frederick agreed. “Please don’t be nervous, I promise you’re not in any trouble. First, would you mind explaining how you chose this particular handle?”

“Oh, um. Well, LadyNoir is, uh, it’s like a common phrase on the forums, it kind of just refers to, like, the partnership between Ladybug and Chat Noir, the dynamic?” Frederick nodded. He seemed satisfied with this explanation, so Emma didn’t volunteer what _else_ ‘LadyNoir’ sometimes referred to, something she’d pointedly avoided thinking about ever since learning the two superheroes were her parents. “But LadyNoir was taken. And all the other variants I could think of, with zeroes and at-symbols instead of letters, those were all taken, too. So I just put my birthday on the end: August 28th, 2030.”

“I see. Well, that’s-wait, your birthday is August 28th? Liberation Day?” Emma nodded, and Frederick grinned. “Lucky you!” he said, and Emma forced herself to smile back. “Anyway. You’re quite right, the Order has seen fit to shut down the Ladyblog forums for the foreseeable future. However, we’ve been reviewing the posts and threads quite extensively. Particularly the Theories and Speculation sub-forum. Miss Agreste, would it surprise you to learn that you are one of the top three posters of that sub-forum for the past year?”

“No,” Emma said. “I was on there a lot. But it wasn’t-I mean, a lot of it was just social, I’m not, like-”

“Miss Agreste, please calm down. Like I said before, you are in absolutely no trouble whatsoever. I will confess, in aggregate your posts do have something of a pro-vigilante bent to them, but that is true of practically every member of the site. Besides, you were thirteen, and the Order does not condemn children merely for being misguided. I’m sure now you understand the danger of your previous thinking?”

“Of… of course,” Emma said, as sincerely as she could manage.

“I’m glad to hear it. And to be honest, your posts were far more objective and cool-headed than those of your fellow forum members. Otherwise we might be having a very different conversation,” Frederick said, laughing a little. Again, Emma forced herself to smile. “Miss Agreste,” he continued, “I’m here because the Order found your theories to be incredibly helpful in identifying a potential candidate for the civilian identity of Ladybug. In fact, we’re almost certain we’ve found her. We’d just like you to clarify one or two posts.” Everyone else in the room was now staring at Emma with barely-concealed shock. Frederick pulled out a sheet of paper from his file and placed it on the coffee table between them. Emma looked down to see a print-out of a forum post she’d made back at the beginning of August.

“Yeah, I remember posting that,” she said slowly. “What about it?”

“Well,” Frederick said, “you posited that Ladybug might, in real life, have deep ties to the occult. However, you never elaborated.”

“No-I mean, I meant to, but I was busy, and then… you know.”

“Would you mind backing up these assertions now? What led you to believe this?”

“Um. Let me think, it’s been a while.” Emma was honestly having trouble remembering why she’d been so sure in the post before her. The second she’d found out that Ladybug was her mother, all her now-useless theories had mostly flown straight out of her head. She finally remembered her line of reasoning, but she took another few moments to make sure that none of it actually pointed towards her family.

“Right,” Emma started, “so… so there were just, like, a lot of incidents when Ladybug seemed to know a lot about magic. Like, in her first year, during the, um…” Emma tried to remember the name, “the Dark Cupid akuma? Chat Noir was put under a hate spell, and she used True Love’s Kiss to break him out of it. And I looked it up, and it turns out that’s actually a really effective way to break a lot of minor spells and enchantments like that, but it’s not exactly common knowledge. And also in… 2020? 2021? There was this coven terrorizing the 7th arrondissement, and the two of them, in less than a week they’d neutralized their spells and defeated them. And… look, I don’t remember all of them, I was going to post them, I swear, but I don’t have them anymore, but there’s just a lot of incidents like that, okay?”

Frederick smiled. “That’s more than sufficient, Miss Agreste, thank you,” he said warmly. “We were already quite sure we had her, but I’m glad you’ve confirmed that your theory has a solid basis in fact.”

“Thanks. Um… so, who is she?” Emma asked, trying to sound casual. Frederick smiled.

“Oh, I probably shouldn’t be telling you, but since the announcement will go out tomorrow morning,” he leaned forward conspiratorially, and pulled out another sheet of paper from his file. “Her name is Elizabeth Renaud,” he said, laying down a picture of an ash-blonde woman about Emma’s mother’s age.

Out of the corner of her eye, Emma noticed both Dani and her grandmother glance over at Uncle Jonathan, although he’d had no visible reaction to the name. Frederick didn't seem to notice.

“She’s 46,” Frederick continued. “Vanished the day the vigilantes were neutralized, but nobody reported it. Not much family to speak of, it seems she kept to herself-just like you’d expect from a vigilante with a nefarious double-life. We have her sister in custody, though. It’s unclear if she knows anything or not, but now that we’re certain all we need from her is a public denouncement.” Frederick smiled again at Emma. “Miss Agreste, you’ve done the Order a very valuable service today, do you understand that? You might even receive a public commendation for this.”

Emma’s eyes widened in horror before she could help herself. “Oh no, that’s, um-I mean-”

“Emma is quite shy,” her grandfather said, stepping right behind her. He reached over the back of the couch and placed a hand on her shoulder. “And of course, assisting the Order is its own reward.” Emma nodded emphatically, grateful for the save.

“Well, that's always nice to hear,” Frederick said. He gathered his papers and stood. The four Agrestes seated on the couch followed suit. “I'm sure we’ll arrange something appropriate; I'll be in touch with you on the matter, Gabriel.” Emma’s grandfather nodded, and led the officer out of the room. Everyone else stayed where they were, not moving an inch until they heard the heavy front door open and then close. Then everyone exhaled and looked at Emma.

“What the heck just happened?” Louis asked.

“Top three poster on the conspiracy nut section of the Ladyblog?” Dani added.

“You guys all _knew_ I was on the Ladyblog forums,” Emma said defensively. “That’s where I got all the spell pictures from.”

“Yeah, sure,” Louis said, “but we didn’t realize you were, like… contributing so much.”

“So wait, let me get this straight. Every day after school for the past year, when you were on your computer, you were _actively_ trying to figure out who Ladybug and Chat Noir were,” Dani said. “Like, doing research for it and stuff, and the whole time you were doing that, Ladybug and Chat Noir were _one floor below you_ , making dinner and folding laundry and shouting things like, ‘Emma, only ten more minutes on the computer and then you have to come downstairs and set the table!’, is that what you’re saying?”

“Yes, Dani, shockingly the irony had not escaped me,” Emma snapped. Before Dani could respond, her grandfather had reappeared.

“First things first,” he said, looking at his wife. “Did he suspect anything?”

Instead of answering, Adele looked at Dani. “What do you think?” she asked. Emma couldn’t tell if her grandmother was testing Dani, or if she honestly felt Dani was now better equipped to answer the question.

“Not a thing,” Dani answered confidently. “He completely believed everything he was saying.”

Adele nodded. “That was my impression as well.” She looked over at Jonathan. “You know her,” she said. Jonathan nodded.

“Sure do,” he said. He sighed. “Poor Beth, I had no idea she’d been missing.”

Gabriel raised an eyebrow. “Friend of yours?”

“More like an acquaintance. We have the same supplier, I’ve been running into her for the last ten, fifteen years, I guess.”

“And she has superpowers?” Emma asked.

“I doubt it,” her uncle replied. “She’s a witch for hire. A much more powerful one than I realized, if she got grabbed by the same spell that took your parents, but that’s it.”

Emma sighed. “And now her sister’s in jail. Because of me.”

Dani patted her shoulder. “It’s not your fault,” she said. “Anyway, we can rescue her. Or maybe we can prove that her sister isn’t Ladybug, it shouldn’t be too hard to-”

“What?” Jonathan interrupted. “No. No, that is a terrible idea.” He looked at his sister. “Tell them it’s a terrible idea.” All three of Adele’s grandchildren looked at her.

“Well…” Adele sighed. “It’s complicated-”

“No, it isn’t,” her brother interrupted. “I feel bad for Beth and her sister, I really do, but the Order misidentifying Beth as Ladybug is a very good thing.”

“Good for _us_ , maybe,” Dani snapped. “It’s not so great for your friend’s sister.”

“Yes, it is,” Jonathan insisted. “Maybe not in the short term, sure, but she’ll be fine. All she has to do is admit her sister is Ladybug, publicly denounce her, and she can go back to a mostly-normal life.”

“What if she doesn’t?” Dani asked, indignant. “What if she’s more loyal than that?”

“Then she’ll be in jail for the rest of the occupation, I guess,” Jonathan said. “Which isn’t ideal, but it’s her decision. And it’s _still_ in her best interests that the Order is as far off from identifying your mother as possible. If the Order figures out who Ladybug actually is, they _will_ arrest everyone in this room. They will quickly figure out that you three are the new superheroes giving them so much trouble, and they will be in a much better position to stop you from giving them any trouble in the future. The odds of the Order being defeated drop to practically zero if that happens, and that is much worse for Beth’s sister than being temporarily arrested.” He looked at all three of them and sighed, frustrated. “This is the problem with having an entire family of superheroes. Alright, listen up, I get that I’m not the ideal person to be telling you this but someone sure as hell needs to. Your grandparents won’t, and your parents wouldn’t if they were here, but it needs to be said: You three are _more important than everybody else_.”

“Good Lord, Jonathan, really?” Adele asked. “You realize their mother is going to kill me when she learns I’ve been letting you give her children superhero pep talks.”

Jonathan scoffed. “Their mother’s already going to kill you when she finds out you let me under the same roof as them after they got Miraculouses. Anyway, tell me I’m wrong.”

“Of course we’re not more important than anybody else,” Dani said, interrupting before her grandmother could say anything.

“Really? Rough estimate, how many people would you say you three have smuggled out of the city since the occupation began?” He looked at Emma expectantly.

“Um,” Emma thought about it. “A little over fifty?”

“Fifty. Fifty people you’ve saved from either imprisonment or execution. How many people do you think Beth’s sister has saved?” Jonathan glanced at a large clock on the room’s mantlepiece. “I’ve said my piece. It’s late, I’m going home. You’ll all do what you want, I’m sure.” He started walking briskly towards the door.

“It’s too late, you don’t have enough time to get there,” Adele said, following after him as he left the room.

“I can avoid the damn patrols, I’ve done it before,” Jonathan replied, annoyed. “I need to get out of this damn house before I…” the rest of his reply was lost as he moved farther away, down the hall. The three teens looked at their grandfather.

“Is he right?” Louis asked.

“None of you in your entire lives will ever hear me admit to that man being right about anything,” Gabriel replied steadily. “However… it would probably be prudent to wait and see how the Order treats this woman’s sister before intervening. It may be that letting the situation resolve itself is the most prudent course of action.”


	23. Danielle

Danielle Agreste woke up screaming in the middle of the night.

“What’s wrong?” Emma demanded, instantly awake. “Who’s attacking? Rajji, feathers-”

“Stop, it’s fine,” Dani interrupted. Her breathing was heavy, but otherwise she sounded normal.

“Hmm?” Louis said sleepily, sitting up and rubbing his eyes.

“Go back to bed,” Dani said, lying back down and rolling onto her side.

“No,” Emma said, “I’m awake now, tell me what the hell just happened. Did you have a nightmare or something?”

“Not exactly,” Dani yawned. “Grandma did.”

“Oh,” Emma said, stunned. “Are you sure?”

Dani yawned again. “Yeah, her signature’s really different from Grandfather’s. He’s calming her down now, though, it’s fine.”

Emma and Louis exchanged a look. “What was the nightmare?” Louis asked.

“I’m not psychic, Louis, I didn’t see it. I just felt what Grandma felt.”

“So what did Grandma feel, then?”

“None of your business,” Dani snapped. “And don’t say anything to her about it tomorrow morning, either. Go back to sleep.”

 

* * *

 

The next morning, Dani slept in. This wasn’t exactly unusual, but her siblings didn’t try getting her up before going downstairs and joining their grandparents for breakfast.

“Sleep well?” their grandmother asked as they arrived, like she did every morning.

“Uh huh,” Emma lied. Adele squinted at her suspiciously. “Did, um, did you sleep well, Grandma?”

Adele groaned. “Oh, God, I woke you kids up, didn’t I?” she asked, sounding more embarrassed than anything else.

“Kind of,” Louis admitted.

“I really didn’t think I was loud enough to be heard all the way in your room,” Adele said. “The walls are pretty soundproof.”

“Uh. Well, we didn’t hear _you_ , per se,” Emma said, because it seemed unlikely their grandmother wouldn’t get it out of them soon anyway. “It was Dani.”

“Dani?” Adele frowned in confusion, but only for a moment. Then her eyes widened. “Oh, _no_ ,” she whispered, horrified.

Before Emma or Louis could respond, they heard their sister’s heavy footsteps coming down the stairs. Dani entered the kitchen, and she and her grandmother stared wordlessly at one another for a few seconds. Then Dani glared at her siblings.

“I told you not to tell her!” she snapped.

“Okay, yes, you did,” Emma said, “but Grandma’s kind of a mind reader, so on some level you must have known that plan was doomed to fail.”

“I am _so sorry_ ,” Adele said. “It-look, I haven’t had that happen in years, I promise. Practically a decade, actually. I really don’t think it’s going to happen again, but if it does we’re going to figure out something so that it doesn’t affect you, okay? You don’t-you don’t need to be dealing with that, on top of everything else.”

“It’s fine, Grandma,” Dani insisted. “Really.” Her grandmother looked like she wanted to protest further, but it was clear that Dani wanted to drop the subject, so she did.

 

* * *

 

It took Dani a while to adjust to navigating her new powers. There was something of a learning curve. There were so many new lines suddenly, and Dani didn’t know how far she could go without crossing them. There were times she seemed to cross them before she even realized they were there.

One afternoon, Dani poked her head into her shared bedroom, which at that moment contained only Emma, her nose buried in a book. “What are you up to?” Dani asked casually.

“Reading,” Emma said tersely, continuing to hold the book up where it was.

“Reading what?”

“Literature assignment,” Emma replied, still curt.

“Oh.” Dani paused. “Um. Do you want to… talk?”

Groaning, Emma finally dropped her book. Her eyes were red. “Are you going to be like this all the time now?” she asked, annoyed. “Privacy just isn’t a thing we get anymore?”

“I can’t help it,” Dani said defensively. “Do you want me to just pretend I _can’t_ tell you’re up here crying, is that it?”

“Yeah, maybe,” Emma snapped. “Maybe I just want to be alone. Maybe I don’t want to bother anyone else. You can’t fix what’s wrong, so what’s the point in making you sad, too?”

Dani sighed and walked over to her sister’s bed, sitting down on its edge. “The point is I’m sad anyway, Emma. Maybe it would be less awful if we were sad together?”

Emma shrugged, then scooted over, making room for Dani to sit next to her. “Maybe,” she admitted begrudgingly, as Dani moved. “I just miss Mom so much,” she whispered.

“Me, too,” Dani said.

“I had a weird conversation with Henri today,” Emma continued, “and-did you ever talk to Mom about stuff like that? Like, people you liked or whatever?”

“No,” Dani said.

“Well, you should have. She was really good for that kind of stuff. The Henri thing isn’t even that big of a deal, but it got me remembering all the conversations I had with her about him last year, and how much I wish I could talk to her about him again. Or about anything again. And that just opened the door for general missing.”

Dani put an arm around her sister. “Tell me,” she said.

“Oh,” Emma brushed away a fresh tear. “He just saw the damn commendation in the paper, that’s all. I guess I should be grateful it wasn’t on the goddamn news, at least, or everybody would have seen it, but he saw it. ‘Local Teen Patriot Emma Agreste Invaluable In Finally Identifying Dangerous Vigilante Ladybug’ and all that. God, the look on his face. He thinks I sold out Mom. Well, he thinks I sold out Elizabeth Renaud, I guess. Still.”

“Well, that fucking sucks,” Dani said. She glanced at her sister. “Is that what Mom would say?”

Emma laughed. “Not exactly,” she said, “but thanks anyway.”

 

* * *

 

And then, of course, there were the times Dani’s empathy was just downright awkward.

“X is three,” Rajji said.

“No, it isn’t,” Emma said patiently. All three kids were in their room working on homework. Wayzz and Nooroo were curled up together asleep on a nearby shelf, but for some reason Rajji really wanted to help Emma with her math homework tonight.

“It is, I remember,” Rajji insisted, perched on the edge of Emma’s textbook.

“Rajji, I have explained this already,” Emma said. “X is different for different problems. In _this_ problem, the log base three of x cubed minus one hundred equals five, okay? I haven’t done the problem yet, so I don’t know what x is, but I know what it _isn’t_ , and that’s three. Why don’t you go help Dani with her math homework? Hers is a lot easier than mine.” Emma started copying the problem onto a sheet of paper.

“She’s not doing it,” Rajji complained.

“Huh?” Emma looked over at Dani, who was staring at her textbook unmoving, her cheeks flushed. She looked a million miles away. “Dani?”

“Hmm? Fine,” Dani said, distracted. Louis looked up from his own work and frowned.

“Are you feeling okay?” he asked.

“Uh huh.”

“You don’t sound okay,” Louis said.

“You look like you have a fever,” Emma added.

“Nope. Fine.”

“You look _really_ out of it,” Emma insisted. She started to get up. “I’m gonna ask Grandma where the thermometer is.”

“ _No_ ,” Dani said, her tone going from distracted to urgent and focused instantly. Emma froze.

“Why not?”

“Grandma’s… busy.”

“No, she isn’t,” Emma said. “She’s, like, reading or something.” She turned to Louis. “Right?”

“Yeah, she’s in her room,” Louis said.

“Do _not_ go in there,” Dani said insistently.

“Why are you being so _weird_ right now?” Emma demanded. “It’s really starting to-”

“Oh my _God_ ,” Louis said, his eyes suddenly widening. He glanced in the direction of his grandparents’ bedroom. “Seriously? _That’s_ why you’re all… flustered?”

“What’s why?” Emma asked, still confused.

“They’re like a million years old!”

Dani groaned. “You know what? I’m going for a walk and getting as far away from this house as possible. Thanks for being so mature about everything, Louis, I really appreciate it.” Dani slammed her textbook shut and quickly stormed out of the room.

“Where the hell is she going?” Emma asked. “Curfew’s in less than an hour.”

“Eh, that should be enough time,” Louis said, turning back to his homework.

“Enough for _what_? What has Dani so worked up, and why can’t we bother Grandma about it?”

“Oh, Emma,” Louis sighed, shaking his head condescendingly. “So innocent, so naive. See, when two people love each other very very much, they-”

“Got it, thanks,” Emma interrupted quickly. She opened her textbook, her interest in logarithms suddenly renewed.

 

* * *

 

“Where’s your sister?”

Emma and Louis looked up and stared at their grandmother for a moment without speaking. “She went for a walk,” Emma finally said.

“At this hour?” Adele frowned. “Why didn’t she say anything?”

“Um.” Emma glanced at her brother.

“She said you were _busy_ ,” Louis said helpfully. Adele’s cheeks turned pink and she blinked rapidly for a moment.

“Ah,” she finally said. She sighed. “One of these days,” she muttered, pinching the bridge of her nose, “I am going to finally start remembering just how much larger that girl’s radius is than my own.” She left without another word, and went downstairs to wait for Dani to return.

Dani got home at less than two minutes to curfew. “Sorry,” she said to her waiting grandmother immediately upon returning, “I didn’t mean to make you worry, I just… um…”

“Yes,” her grandmother said. “I heard.” She sighed. “I’m afraid you’re having a much worse time of being a new empath than I ever did, and I don’t think I’m helping you with that transition nearly as much as I should be. I’m sorry.”

Dani shrugged. “It’s fine,” she said unconvincingly.

“Can I show you something?” Adele asked.

“Oh-yeah, sure, why not.” Dani followed her grandmother through the house, to a study on the first floor.

“At the start of the occupation,” Adele told Dani, “your grandfather and I went through the house and grabbed everything that might link us to our old superhero identities, just in case. We hid it all back here.” She crossed the room, pushed a painting aside, and punched a number into  the wall safe behind it. “Sit,” she said, as she pulled out a large box. Dani sat on a small couch in the room, and her grandmother joined her.

Dani looked inside the box. “There’s a lot of jewelry in here,” she observed, as she picked up a choker. The repeating design on it was abstract, but its similarity to butterfly wings was unmistakable.

“Your grandfather designed that,” Adele said. “He was always sneaking that motif into everything. It was a private joke that never seemed to get old. I wish you kids could have your own little winks and nods like that, but I’m afraid it would be too dangerous, with the way things are. But once the occupation’s over, all this is yours if you want it.” She sighed. “You kids are really missing out on the experiences Gabriel and I had in common with your parents,” she said, somewhat mournfully. “No nighttime patrols, no public accolades-quite the opposite, in fact.”

Dani shrugged, then reached into the box again and pulled out a framed watercolor of her grandparents as superheroes. “This is really good,” she said, impressed.

Adele grinned. “It was a birthday present. Our first year. Gabriel had no idea that was me when he painted it for me, actually. And I had no idea that was him. We both thought we were having a joke at the other’s expense.” Adele sighed again. “That's another experience you're missing out on, not knowing each other’s identities in the beginning. It's one of the more frustrating ones, though, so maybe you lucked out there.”

Continuing to look through the box, Dani pulled out a picture of her grandmother on her wedding day. “Why’s this in here? Your other wedding pictures aren't.”

“Oh, it's just the only one I had out that's close-up enough you can just make out the embroidery on the bodice. Butterflies again, see?” Adele pointed. “I told him not to, but Gabriel couldn't resist. Your mother snuck a few spots onto her dress as well, actually.” Adele looked down at her granddaughter. “I still have my dress stashed away. It's in excellent condition, even after all this time. Maybe you'll wear it one day.” Adele caught a flash of panic from Dani and she laughed. “Not for many many years, darling, of course,” she added, patting her granddaughter’s shoulder.

“Right,” Dani said, somewhat unenthusiastically. She continued to look at the picture. Adele’s left arm was wrapped around her new husband’s waist, her right around her brother’s shoulders, and all three of them were grinning widely-or at least, Adele and Jonathan were grinning widely, but Gabriel was smiling more overtly than Dani had ever seen in real life, at any rate. “I've never seen Grandfather and Uncle Jonathan look so happy so close to one another,” Dani said wryly.

Adele sighed. “They were best friends back then,” she said.

“Weird.” They really hated each other now. Dani wouldn't have ever guessed it before becoming an empath, but if anything she'd underestimated exactly how much. “I knew you three worked together back then, but I guess I just assumed that they’d always, I don't know, rubbed each other the wrong way or something.”

“No,” Adele said softly. “Not until I disappeared.”

“That’s… that's what your nightmare last week was about, wasn't it?” Her grandmother nodded. “What was it like? Those four years?”

“You don't want to hear about all that, sweetheart. It was a long time ago.”

“You felt trapped,” Dani said. “And it hurt. And you were sure you were going to die without getting out. In your dream, anyway. Was it like that?”

Adele sighed and began to stroke Dani’s hair, the way she’d seen Dani’s mother do countless times over the last fourteen years. “Yes,” she said. “But there’s no reason to assume that’s what your parents are going through,” she added, correctly deducing what was bothering her granddaughter.

“Why didn’t they kill you?”

“Oh, they found having an empath useful,” Adele said. “And I thought it would be better to cooperate somewhat and look for an opportunity to take them down. Which I eventually found, although it took a long time.”

“Do Mom and Dad have powers like that? Without their Miraculouses?” Dani knew she was being too abrupt, too demanding and inquisitive, that her grandmother had intended this to be more of a comforting distraction than anything else. But ever since the nightmare, these questions had plagued her, and this was her first real opening to ask them.

“Not quite anything as overt as empathy,” Adele said. “Your father’s reflexes are incredible, as is his night vision. And your mother’s just… lucky.”

“But that wouldn’t be useful to the Order, the way your empathy was to that cult. What if… what if they just took the superheroes alive to see which ones could be useful? What if they killed all the ones who weren’t?” Dani could tell, immediately, that this was not a new idea to her grandmother. Adele had already considered this possibility, and that terrified her.

“I wish I could say I’m sure that’s wrong,” her grandmother said gently, “but I can’t. I do think the mass memory wipe suggests they were planning on keeping _most_ of the superheroes alive, if not all of them, but… I have no idea what for, so I can’t be sure.” Adele pulled her granddaughter close and kissed her forehead. “We’ll get them back,” she said, and Dani knew that she was saying it with far more certainty than she felt.

“Or if we don’t, we’ll make the Order regret taking them at least,” Dani muttered.

“Or that,” her grandmother agreed, and on that point, at least, Adele _was_ certain.


	24. Louis

For the slightest fraction of an instant, Louis Agreste was everywhere and nowhere and one with the void.

Slowly, Louis opened his eyes and looked at his kwami. “How long did that take?” He glanced at his watch and scowled. “Three hours?”

“That's excellent progress,” Wayzz said encouragingly. “At this rate you should be slipping in and out of trance states at will by the end of the year.”

“I guess,” Louis muttered. “It didn't feel like it was that long, at least. That's a good sign, right?”

Before his kwami could answer, Dani came bursting into the sitting room at top speed. “What… the hell… are you doing?” she demanded, completely out of breath.

“Training,” Louis said. “Why?”

“Why? Your emotional signature _disappeared_ , Louis! It doesn't even do that when you're asleep! For a second I thought you’d teleported, but Emma’s still fast asleep, and-”

“Woah, really? It disappeared?” Louis looked at Wayzz. “That has to be a good sign, right?”

“A very good sign, Master,” Wayzz replied. “Emotional stillness is an essential part of transcendence. You're a natural.”

Dani glared at them both. “Well, next time you decide to try achieving nirvana or whatever the hell you're playing at, maybe you could give me a heads-up first? You know, that you’re doing something that feels identical to _dying_?”

“You want me to wake you up at five in the morning to tell you I’ll be meditating?”

Dani’s eyes widened. “You’ve been up here for _three hours_? Jesus, isn’t it bad enough that Emma’s exhausted all the time, now you’ve got something against getting a full eight hours of sleep?”

Louis frowned, then looked back at his watch. It was less than ten minutes before they needed to leave for school. “You said Emma’s still sound asleep?”

“Yeah. Why?”

Louis slowly got to his feet. “I should have been keeping a better eye on that,” he said. “I’ll talk to Grandma.”

“Talk to Grandma about what?” Dani asked. Louis said nothing, but left the room and headed downstairs. Sighing, Dani followed.

“Grandma?” Louis found both his grandparents downstairs in the study. They stopped talking when he entered.

“Good morning, darlings,” Adele said, looking over. “Shouldn't you be leaving about now? Where’s your sister?” she asked, looking at Dani.

“Emma’s staying home today,” Louis said firmly. His grandfather looked up from the paper he'd been reading, one eyebrow raised.

“Says who?” he asked.

“Says the Guardian.”

Adele and Gabriel both blinked in surprise. “Oh,” Adele finally said. “Is something wrong?”

“She pushes herself to the limit on every rescue mission lately,” Louis said, “and it’s an energy drain. She’ll be fine if we let her sleep as long as she needs to.” He scratched the back of his neck nervously. “Um… we should probably reevaluate how we do rescue missions in the future. You know, rendezvousing at the country manor, dropping people off all over the country… I don’t think what we’re currently doing is sustainable for much longer. For Emma, that is.”

Adele and Gabriel exchanged a worried glance, and Adele’s face went a shade paler as she nodded slowly. “I see,” she said, and Louis had no difficulty detecting the note of guilt in her voice. “I… I’ll call Alya and explain it to her. We’ll figure something out.” She sighed. “Your grandfather and I will take care of it, don’t worry.”

 

* * *

 

“Louis! Dani! Wait up!”

School had just let out for the day, and Louis and Dani were headed back home. Louis turned around to see Henri running at them. “What's up?” he asked when Henri reached them.

“I, uh, heard your sister was sick?” Henri asked, worried.

“Yeah, but it's just like a 24-hour bug thing, she'll be fine,” Louis assured him.

“Oh. Okay. Well, uh, well that's good. Um. Could you just tell her I hope she feels better soon?” Henri asked nervously.

“Sure, man,” Louis said.

“Is that all you want us to tell her?” Dani asked, almost accusingly.

“Um.” Henri’s face went slightly red. “Actually, could you tell her I'm sorry?”

Dani looked taken aback. “Really?”

“For what?” Louis asked.

“I-” Henri looked around furtively, then dropped his voice to a near whisper. “Last week, when she got that commendation, I wasn't… I acted disappointed in her, and that wasn't fair of me. I should have had more faith in Emma. I know she'd never knowingly betray Ladybug, you know? I just wasn't thinking. It caught me off-guard.”

“Not as off-guard as it caught Emma, trust me,” Dani said wryly. Henri’s blush deepened.

“Yeah, I get that now. Anyway, just tell her I'm sorry, and I hope she's better soon, and I'm looking forward to her coming back to school, okay? Thanks.” Henri waved at them as he walked off, and Louis and Dani started again for home.

“That'll cheer Emma up,” Dani said, after about five minutes of walking in silence. “I'm glad something will. She's been having a hard time of it, huh?”

Louis glanced side-eyed at Dani. “You know, you haven’t exactly been having an easy time of it either,” he said hesitantly. Dani bristled. “Not that-I mean, you’ve been doing a great job handling it, but…”

“But what?” Dani demanded.

“Well, I was talking to Wayzz about it, and he was saying that usually it doesn’t take this long for Butterfly holders to adjust to being empaths. It's been a month, and you still seem-”

“You and Wayzz talk about me behind my back a lot now?” Dani interrupted. Her pace quickened, and Louis had to practically run to keep up.

“Don’t be like that,” he said defensively, “it’s my job to pay attention to stuff like that now, you know that. And obviously I dropped the ball with Emma, I don’t want to screw up with you, too. Talk to me? If there’s a problem, let’s figure it out before it gets out of hand.”

“What’s to figure out?” Dani asked angrily. “Apparently I’m a bad Butterfly holder. I don’t see what talking is going to do about that.”

“You’re not bad, that’s not what I said.”

“A bad fit for it, then, whatever.”

“No,” Louis said emphatically. “You’re practically a perfect fit for your Miraculous, I promise. That much is obvious. You’re just having trouble adjusting to the powers, and I don’t know why. I get that empathy must be weird at first, but-”

Dani let out a frustrated groan, cutting her brother off. “Yeah, well, maybe it’s not just the empathy,” she muttered.

“Oh?”

Dani bit her lip. “I, uh… I’m not sure how to put it into words, actually. It’s like… okay, yes, it is the empathy. It’s weird and invasive and I can’t turn it off and it’s taking up all the space in my head. But it’s more than that. It’s that having access to other people’s emotions, _knowing_ what other people feel, and how, it’s kind of… made me realize something about myself? Something that was true before the empathy, before the occupation, but I wasn’t able to see it until now. And I think that's what's actually been bothering me this whole time.”

“And what’s that?” Louis prompted, after a minute of silence from Dani.

“There’s… an emotion,” Dani said slowly. “A big one. And I don’t feel it. I thought I did, I just assumed, but now that I’ve been in other people’s heads, felt what other people feel, I’m realizing that what I thought was that emotion wasn’t it at all. I guess I could be repressing it-”

“You don’t repress emotions,” Louis interrupted with total certainty. “If you did you’d be a terrible fit for the Butterfly Miraculous.”

“Oh.” This, at least, seemed to be somewhat comforting to Dani. “Well, I didn’t really think I was, anyway. It’s just not _there_ , Louis. Isn’t that a problem, too? How can I be a good Butterfly holder if there’s an entire emotion I never feel for myself?”

“Easily,” Louis said. “I bet there are a ton of emotions you don’t personally feel. Like, I don’t know, homicidal rage. I think I can confidently say that feeling homicidal rage would not make you a better Mariposa.”

Dani snorted. “The emotion I’m talking about is a bit more universal,” she said.

“Right.” Louis glanced at his sister. “You’re saying what I think you’re saying, right?”

Dani shrugged. “Why don’t you tell me what you think I’m saying, because at this point I’m really not sure myself. It all seems like such a weird, confusing mess. I’ve been trying to make sense of it for the last two weeks, but I’m not sure I’m getting anywhere.”

“I think you’re saying you’re asexual,” Louis said. “Right?”

Dani froze, silent for a moment, but her eyes lit up as though a switch behind them had been flipped. “Oh. _Oh_. I… that’s exactly what I’m saying, isn’t it?” She started walking again. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of it like that before. I mean, when you put it like that it seems a lot less complicated all of a sudden, doesn’t it?”

“It definitely doesn’t need to be complicated, Dani,” Louis insisted. “And, look, I can’t speak for any other aspects of your life, but as for your Miraculous? As the Guardian I can very confidently say that it’s not going to be an issue. You are a great Mariposa, and this doesn't change that one bit.”

Dani took a shaky breath and let it out slowly. “Really?”

“I promise.” Louis looked at his sister. “Are you going to be okay?”

“Yeah, it’s just, it feels weird to say out loud, I guess. But it's good, I think.” Dani paused. “It’s not going to be, like, _weird_ for everyone else, right?”

Louis shrugged. “I doubt it, but if it is that’s their problem, not yours.” Dani nodded and they kept walking. A short while later, Louis suddenly stopped. “What?” Dani asked.

“I just realized, Dad’s gonna make so many ‘ace’ puns when he finds out.”

Dani burst out laughing. “Yeah, I guess he is,” she agreed. “I guess that’s something to look forward to. In case the whole saving-the-world thing wasn’t enough motivation.” Dani’s smile faltered, and she bit her lip. “God, I-if I’d figured this out a year ago, I’m sure I would have been all nerves about telling them, but now? I’m just terrified I’ll never get the chance.”

 

* * *

 

They’d made it about halfway back when Louis stopped suddenly at an intersection and looked down its left turn. “I completely understand if you just want to go home, I know it’s been a long day, but how would you feel about making a little side trip?” he asked his sister.

Dani raised an eyebrow skeptically. It was a tone of voice she hadn’t heard from Louis since before the occupation, one she generally only heard right before they got themselves in huge trouble. “A little side trip?”

“Yeah.”

Dani’s eyebrow stayed up. “On a scale of one to ten, how hijinks-y is this little side trip?”

“Uh. Eight, eight and a half? Not quite as hijinks-y as that stunt we pulled two years ago, but… it’s fine, we can go home.”

“Nah, I could use the distraction. What’s your idea?” Dani asked. Louis told her, and for a moment she stared at him, expressionless. “You know,” Dani said slowly, “this is why everyone always thinks we need Emma around to supervise us. Because when it’s just the two of us, without her holding us back? We’re just a _little_ too awesome. I love it, I’m a thousand percent on board, let’s do it.”

Fifteen minutes later they were standing on the sidewalk outside the Lahiffe house.

“Uncle Nino told you where everything is?” Dani asked.

“Yeah… well, he gave me a general idea, anyway. He was mostly just thinking out loud at the time, what he’d go back for if it wasn’t too dangerous. It was at the end of a rescue mission, we were waiting for Emma to get back from dropping everyone off, so we didn’t actually talk for very long.”

“But you know what to grab?” Dani asked. Louis nodded. “Awesome.”

“This is a terrible idea,” said a voice coming from Dani’s purse.

“Jeez, Nooroo, calm down, it’ll be fine,” Dani replied.

“You should at least wait for your sister, it would be much safer with her abilities.”

“Nooroo, Emma just missed a day of school because too many people are asking too much of her all the time lately. Won’t it be nice to show her that Louis and I can handle things like this without her?”

“You know, the last time I told one of my holders something was a terrible idea, she didn’t listen to me, either.”

Dani’s jaw dropped slightly as she looked inside her purse. “ _Wow_ , Nooroo, you’re playing the ‘Grandma got kidnapped in Tibet’ card? That is _low_. Anyway, this is nothing like that, we've got Louis. Besides, Wayzz isn’t freaking out.”

“Wayzz?” Nooroo called over.

“I trust in my master’s wisdom,” replied a much calmer voice from Louis’ jacket. Nooroo muttered something inaudible, but Dani didn’t bother finding out what. Instead, she closed her eyes and focused for a moment.

“All clear,” she told Louis. “No guards anywhere nearby. You have keys?”

Louis scoffed, pulled out a keyring from one of his pockets, and walked up to the front door, Dani close behind. “Hmm. Looks like the Order put an extra padlock on the place. Good thing I brought my picks with-” Before he could finish the sentence, Wayzz had flown out from his pocket and phased through the lock. A second later it clicked open.

“You guys can open locks?” Dani asked.

“Of course,” Wayzz replied. “It’s one of the many advantages of selective corporeality.”

Louis was staring at the opened lock like a child who’d just watched his ice cream scoop fall on the floor. “Where’s the fun in that?” he finally muttered, but he pulled out a set of keys and unlocked the front door.

 

* * *

 

When Louis and Dani got home, duffel bag full of stuff from the Lahiffe house in tow, the first floor was abandoned. “Where is everybody?” Louis asked his sister, after looking around. She concentrated for a second.

“Panic room,” she said. “And it is very crowded up there.” They made their way upstairs and through the hallways. Inside the panic room, Uncle Jonathan was at his usual book-swamped desk. Everyone else-Emma, their grandparents, and both Lahiffes-was seated at a table on the other side of the room, all bent over a large map.

“-could probably manage from thirty kilometers out. It’s still close enough that we might be observed coming and going, but I have enough contacts on the inside now. If we started to be noticed I’m sure I’d hear about it before the Order was able to move in,” Alya was saying. “Is thirty kilometers still too far to go, though? Or-” she stopped talking as Dani and Louis entered, and all five of them looked up.

“What the hell, Louis?” Emma asked angrily, before any of the adults could speak. “I can’t get a little tired now without you telling everyone I’m sick and working everyone up over nothing?”

“You’re looking better,” Louis replied calmly. “When did you finally wake up?”

“Less than half an hour ago,” his grandmother replied, after a few moments of embarrassed silence from Emma.

“But now I’m _fine_ , right? Problem solved? So can you just tell Aunt Alya she doesn’t need to keep beating herself up and we can just go back to doing what we’ve-”

“Of course we’re not going back to doing what we’ve been doing,” Alya said. “I can’t believe I let it get this bad. My best friend disappears, and instead of keeping her kids _safe_ while she’s gone, I’m working them half to death. What is wrong with me?”

“We’re _saving lives_ ,” Emma protested, “that’s way more important than whether I’m tired or not. Mom would understand that. _Ladybug_ would understand that.”

“We can save lives without risking permanent damage to your energy, Emma,” Louis said softly.

Emma sighed. “Fine,” she said begrudgingly, “but I still think you’re making a big deal out of nothing.” She narrowed her eyes. “What’s in the bag?”

“Oh, right.” Louis looked at Alya and Nino. “Dani and I picked up some stuff for you two,” he said. “From your house.” He tossed the duffel bag to Nino.

For a moment, everyone seated at the table stared at Louis and Dani blankly. Then all four adults started yelling at them at once.

“What were you _thinking_ -”

“-isn’t anything there that we need-”

“-without _Emma_? You could have been seen-”

“-into the house of the most wanted person in Paris-”

“What part of ‘don’t draw attention to yourselves’ is confusing to you two?”

“-you ever do anything that reckless again, I’ll-”

“Okay, okay!” Dani finally interrupted. “We get it, never again, we promise, okay? But-well, we’ve got it now, so…”

“Got _what_ , exactly?” Alya asked, still incredulous. She looked at her husband, who had finally opened the bag and looked inside. He, too, had been yelling at the teens, but now that he’d seen what they’d grabbed his eyes widened dramatically. “What?” Alya repeated. “What is it?”

“It’s, uh… a bunch of equipment I’d been messing around with a few months ago,” he said slowly.

“So?”

Nino looked up. “Two words: Pirate. Radio.”

For a moment, Alya was speechless. “For real?” she finally asked. “You think you could set something like that up?” Nino nodded excitedly, and Alya’s face broke out in a wide grin. “Oh my _God_ , Nino, do you have any idea how amazing that would be? We could directly combat all the Order propaganda, the misinformation, we could start giving real hope to people, we could-” Alya remembered herself suddenly, and she whirled back on the teens. “You had no business going back to our place, you could have been caught and arrested or shot, don’t ever do anything like that again, got it?” Louis and Dani nodded solemnly, and Alya looked back at the bag and grinned. “This is actually going to work?” she asked.

“I think so… Most of what I’d need is definitely here, and anything that isn’t I’d be able to-oh.” Nino’s face fell suddenly. “I really don’t know where we could set something like this up, though,” he said, sounding deflated. “Practically every safe location we have in the city is in a basement. None of them are high enough to transmit a decent signal, and if one was it would probably be way too easy for the Order to find.”

“Wait.” On the other side of the room Uncle Jonathan, who had until now been completely unengaged with what was going on, looked up. “You guys need a room that’s at the top of a tall building that the Order can’t track down?” he asked.

Alya looked over at him. “Yeah,” she said, sounding suspicious. “Why?”

“I, um. I might have a place you could use.”

 

* * *

 

“Wow, querido, you really… you really committed to the aesthetic, huh?” Ferd asked, looking around the giant empty room in awe.

“I don’t think that comes as a surprise to anyone,” Jonathan muttered. He seemed extremely uncomfortable.

“Are you feeling alright, sweetie?” Alya asked Emma, once she'd finished bringing everybody over.

“I’m _fine_ , I keep telling you guys trips within the city are nothing,” Emma said defensively. She looked at her brother. “Well? How does it look?”

Louis slowly rotated in place, examining the magical defense system of wards inscribed upon the wall, completely encircling the room. “Everything's mostly held up perfectly,” he finally said. “The anti-detection stuff from that section,” Louis indicated an arc a few feet wide, “could stand to be touched up, but overall I'm surprised this work is thirty years old, most of these could have been cast yesterday.”

“That's good,” Ferd said, walking up to the edge of the room where Louis had indicated and examining the inscriptions, “because re-casting these from scratch is definitely well beyond my capabilities. I should be able to handle a touch-up without too much difficulty, though.” He started tracing over the inscription with a piece of chalk, the stopped and looked back at Jonathan. “Hang on, have we been paying rent on this place for our entire marriage?”

“I bought it,” Jonathan said defensively. “And I know I should have sold it, but the idea of bringing a realtor up here was just a little too surreal, even for me. So I just stopped thinking about it. I haven't been here since…”

“Since Mom and Dad kicked your ass back in 2016?” Dani suggested.

“Yeah. That.”

“Well,” Nino said slowly, looking around, “it’s close to perfect, actually. High up, not too far from the city center, that giant ominous butterfly window should be good for letting the broadcast signal through…”

While her husband busied himself with setting up his equipment and making note of the things he still needed, Alya walked to the edge of the room and watched Ferd work in silence for a few minutes.

“Your marriage,” Alya finally said, “is something of a mystery to me, I have to say.”

“Oh, that’s because you’ve never seen me and Jonathan get two hours deep into a conversation about the minutiae of theurgy in early Christianity,” Ferd replied easily, not taking his eyes off his work. Alya folded her arms.

“There are other nerds in the world, if that’s your point,” she said.

“There are,” Ferd agreed. “I’ve dated more than a few of them. Never quite clicked with any the way I do with Jonathan, though.”

“Hmm.” Alya shrugged. “I just don’t get you two.”

“Well,” Ferd said calmly, “no offense-and I do mean that sincerely, because I have all the admiration in the world for everything you’ve done for this city, both before the Occupation and during, I really do-but I don’t actually need you to ‘get’ my marriage. You’re a full generation younger than I am, so maybe this won’t make a ton of sense to you. But there’s something about growing up as an openly gay teen in the nineteen-eighties that makes a man wildly ambivalent about whether or not other people approve of his relationships.”

For a second, Alya looked like she wanted to protest this as unfair. But then she looked over at her own husband and simply nodded. “No, that makes sense to me,” she said. She cocked an eyebrow. “Your generation didn't fix _everything_ before mine came along, you know.”

Ferd chuckled softly. “That’s very true,” he agreed.


	25. Emma

The three Agreste teens had just gotten home for lunch the next Friday when the doorbell rang. They all rushed to the security camera, their grandmother close behind.

“He’s not Order,” Dani said confidently, of the man waiting outside. He looked to be about their grandparents’ age.

“No,” her grandmother agreed, ”but I don’t recognize him.” Frowning, she walked to the front door and opened it. “Can I help you?” Adele asked the man.

“Is Jonathan here?” he asked. Adele’s eyebrows went up.

“How did you know to look for him here?” she asked suspiciously.

“I didn't, exactly. But his apartment’s empty and after I checked a few other spots I remembered you were his sister, so I thought I'd check. I would have called, but it’s not exactly the kind of conversation you want to have on a phone nowadays, if you take my meaning.”

Adele placed a hand on her hip. “And how, exactly, did you know where I live?”

The man laughed. “Have you seen where you live, lady? The whole city knows.” Adele rolled her eyes slightly, but opened the door to let the man in. As he walked into the foyer, Adele stepped up to an intercom next to the door and pressed a button. “Jonathan, could you come downstairs?” She released the button and waited patiently. About ten seconds later, footsteps could be heard upstairs, and then Jonathan appeared.

“Jonathan! My best friend!”

“Your _best_ friend?” Jonathan repeated, as he descended the staircase. “Jesus, Sal, you must want something big.”

Sal scoffed. “Not at all. I just need to borrow something.”

“What?”

“Your husband.”

Jonathan raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”

“Just for a few runic things, that’s all. I’ll give him right back.”

Jonathan did not seem amused. “What happened to your usual guy for that?” he asked.

“Oh, he’s spooked,” Sal said dismissively. “Ever since that announcement about Beth came out, a lot of my usual guys stopped answering my calls, actually. Nobody wants to be associated with Ladybug’s occult supplier for some reason.” Sal shook his head. “Elizabeth Renaud, Ladybug. Can you believe it?”

“No,” Jonathan said immediately. Sal’s expression darkened.

“Yeah,” he agreed, his tone suddenly dead serious, “neither can I.” He shrugged. “Anyway, it’s just some little things, well within Ferd’s abilities.”

“And why would Ferd want to be associated with Ladybug’s occult supplier?”

“Because I’ve got an answer to that question you were asking two months ago.”

Jonathan’s eyes widened. “You know I could get that kind of information to people who could really do something with it,” he said carefully. “Maybe the decent, patriotic thing to do would be to just give it to me without any strings attached.”

“Oh, probably,” Sal agreed. “And I absolutely would have, if I’d gotten it a week ago. But today I _really_ need some runic magic done. You understand how it is.”

Jonathan sighed and pulled out his phone.

 

* * *

 

By the time Ferd arrived at the mansion, it was almost time to head back to school. All three triplets were silently praying none of the adults responsible for them would remember that. Fortunately just about every adult present seemed to have completely forgotten they were there.

“Sure, I’ll do it,” Ferd said, after Jonathan briefly explained what was going on. He turned to Sal. “What’s your info?”

Wordlessly, Sal reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. He handed it over to Jonathan, who unfolded it and quickly skimmed it, Ferd looking over his shoulder.

“What is it?” Adele asked. Jonathan looked at Ferd.

“It’s a list of twenty-five historical magical fraternities,” Ferd said. “Secret societies. Most of them are extinct. None of them have had any real power, magical or otherwise, for at least a century, although I think they all wielded some degree of political influence at least once. Like…” Ferd squinted, then pointed to a name. “The Gilded Lily, they played a role in King John’s rise to power in England, but they died out during the Industrial Revolution. The Brothers of the Thorn, they’re still around technically but they haven’t done anything of note since the fall of Napoleon. The ones that haven’t completely died out are basically just membership clubs at this point.”

“That’s a fine way to talk about your glorious leaders,” Sal said wryly. Ferd looked over at him.

“So one of these isn’t as extinct as everyone believes, then?” he asked. “One of these organizations is the Order?” He sounded skeptical.

“They’re all the Order,” Sal replied.

Ferd blinked. “That's not possible,” he said. “I could believe that _maybe_ three or four of these organizations had managed to retain influence without anyone realizing, but all of them?”

“Oh, they didn't retain influence,” Sal said. “But the sons of powerful men, and their sons, and their sons, they remembered that the world owed them something. Until, eventually, enough of those sons happened to be born at the same time with the ability to take it.”

Gabriel, who had until now been content to stand at the edge of the foyer and silently give Sal the side-eye, finally spoke. “Carew,” he said.

“Among others,” Sal confirmed. “But he was the catalyst, he was the one who reached out to all the rest. The one who brought all twenty-five of those organizations together. They’ve been planning it for decades.” Sal started to put his coat back on. “You didn't get that list from me, obviously,” he said. “And if your survival instincts are a tenth of what they'd need to be for you to have survived this long, you’ll memorize and destroy it before the day’s done. I hope you can do something with it, but don't tell me what. Ferd, I'll be in touch for the spells I need. I’ll show myself out.” He turned around and left, shutting the heavy front door behind him.

“Well?” Gabriel said after a moment, looking at Jonathan. “It's all very interesting, but is it useful?”

Jonathan shrugged. “Not for anything I'm doing. Get it to the reporter, maybe she can make something of it.”

“It must be good for something, right?” Adele said. “Or they wouldn’t bother keeping it a secret?”

“That logic is not particularly sound, love,” Gabriel said, “but let’s hope so all the same.”

“Well, maybe-” Adele stopped talking mid-sentence as she caught sight of a clock. “Good Lord, is that the time?” She looked over at her grandchildren. “What are you three still doing here?”

 

* * *

 

“We should get a head start on homework before the mission tonight,” Emma said as the three of them arrived home that afternoon. Her siblings both rolled their eyes at this. “Oh, come on, you know we’re not going to do it later.”

“It’s _Friday_ ,” Louis said.

“Why not do it now?” Emma asked. “What if something crazy comes up on Sunday?”

“I can’t focus on homework with that fight going on,” Dani complained. “I’ll do it later.”

Emma frowned. “What fight?”

“Uh…” Dani concentrated. “It feels like Uncle Jonathan and Uncle Ferd. Anyway, I’m gonna go watch TV and zone out.” She walked off towards the room with the largest screen. Emma and Louis exchanged a glance, then both wordlessly started upstairs, towards the panic room.

“... think I know what druidic structures look like, and these spells don't have a single one of their earmarks,” they could hear Uncle Jonathan saying, once they got close enough to overhear.

“The druids weren't a monolith, Jonathan, there's a vast amount of variation from tribe to tribe-”

“None of whom practiced magic that looks _anything_ like this. I’ve seen a _lot_ of spells over the past fifty years and I think I'd know if-”

“Right, you know everything. I'm just the rube with a PhD and four published books-”

“Your PhD is in _French History_ , and only one of your books really deals with magic at all, and it sure as hell wasn’t druidic, so-”

“But I did a lot of preliminary research before narrowing my focus for that book and I _know_ I remember coming across something like this before. Jonathan, I have a great amount of respect for your subject expertise here, but let's face it, if a spell structure isn't currently in use there's no reason you'd know anything about it. Whereas _historically_ speaking…”

“Can you understand anything they’re saying?” Louis asked his sister in a whisper.

“Like thirty percent maybe?” she whispered back.

“... not twenty-four hours into the occupation you explicitly said you thought a historian’s perspective could be really helpful,” Ferd said. “Now I'm giving you one and you're just dismissing it out of hand?”

“I'm not _dismissing_ anything, I'm just not accepting it blindly. I don't think it's out of line to ask for at least one primary source backing up something as wildly out of left field as what you're suggesting.”

“Well, I don't remember the title of the book-”

“Convenient-”

“-but give me a few weeks and I'll-”

“A few _weeks_? Since when does it take you longer than a day or two to find a book?”

“Since my university became overrun with Order operatives obsessed with shutting down free thought, _Jonathan_. You want me to go to the main library and start openly looking up books about spell structures that look exactly like what the Order used to take over the continent? I wouldn't even make it out of the building before being arrested and you know it.”

“What are you two doing?” Dani asked at a normal volume, walking up right behind her siblings. Emma and Louis both jumped.

“Shh!” Emma whispered. “Keep your voice down. We’re eavesdropping.”

Dani raised an eyebrow. “You know you're only, like, ten feet away from them?”

“So?”

“So Uncle Jonathan _definitely_ senses you two geniuses out here listening to him.”

Emma and Louis both went pale, and a second later the raised voices from within died down. “Can I help you kids with something?” Uncle Jonathan called through the wall.

“No,” Dani called back, “we’re just on our way to our room.” She grabbed Emma and Louis and forcefully shoved them down the hall.

 

* * *

 

About an hour into her homework, Emma realized she needed a reference book from the library. As she entered, she was surprised to find Ferd already inside, sitting at the room’s table and grading papers. He looked up as she entered.

“Emma!” he said brightly. “How are you? Feeling better from last week?”

“Oh… oh, yeah, I’m fine,” she said. “Just needed a book for an assignment.” She walked a few shelves over and grabbed the one she was looking for, then walked over to the table. “Can I work here?”

“Sure.” Ferd shoved a pile of papers aside unceremoniously, and Emma sat down. She worked on her assignment silently for a few minutes before working up the nerve to speak.

“I would’ve thought you’d have gone home already,” she said carefully. “Uncle Jonathan usually doesn’t leave until right before curfew.”

“Oh, well,” Ferd said, “maybe it’s silly, but I thought I’d wait around so we could walk back together. I don’t see him as much lately, seems like he winds up pulling all-nighters here more often than not.”

“You’re not mad at him?”

“Huh? Oh, the fight. No, that was nothing.”

“So did, um, did Uncle Jonathan come around, then?” Emma asked.

“Nah,” Ferd said. “It's fine, though, I'll find that book eventually and he’ll admit I'm right like he always does.”

Emma frowned. “But you said it would take weeks.”

“It might. I'm sorry about that, but if the Order knows I'm looking into it, they won't take long to figure out why, and then everything we’re doing here gets exposed. The book won’t be any good to anyone then.”

“It's not that, it's just-if you're right, but Uncle Jonathan doesn't believe it… I mean, if he did, could he get farther? With decoding the spells?”

“Oh, I see. No, it doesn't matter if he believes me or not. Without more info the stuff I remember is too broad to be useful. So there isn't really anything to be gained by arguing more. Until I find that book, all Jonathan can do is keep doing what he's doing either way.”

“Oh.” Emma paused. “Will it help a lot? When you find it?”

Ferd shrugged. “I barely understand what Jonathan's doing. I can follow along when he walks me through it, but I can't really predict how helpful anything will be.” He looked over at her. “You don't need to worry about all that, though. You've got enough going on.”

Emma groaned. “I'm getting really sick of the adults in this family telling us that,” she said. Ferd laughed.

“Yeah, I'm sure. I really am impressed, though. Honestly, I doubt I could even handle just wearing that thing, never mind all the powers and responsibilities that come with it, you know? I'd just freeze every ten seconds, I'd be all,’Oh my _God_ I'm wearing the clip Madame de Pompadour wore when she seduced Louis XV at that fête in Versailles’, you know?”

Emma blinked. “Um. No, that's, uh, that’s new information to me, actually,” she said slowly. She reached around to the back of her head and gingerly touched her Miraculous, stunned. “Madame de Pompadour was a superhero?”

Ferd looked surprised. “No, of course not,” he said. “Superheroes are a much more modern phenomenon. They-well, masked vigilantes have been around since the late nineteenth century, and obviously superpowers have been around forever, but the union of those two things didn't really take off until about the 1920s.”

Emma blinked. “Oh,” she said. “So… what did Miraculous holders do before that?”

Ferd shrugged. “Depends on the time and place,” he said. “You didn't ask your kwami about past holders? I would have had a million questions if it was me.”

“I tried,” Emma said, “but Rajji’s a bit… spacey.”

“I am not!” Rajji exclaimed indignantly, appearing suddenly. Ferd jumped in his seat, and even Emma was surprised. None of the kwami liked to appear before non-Miraculous holders, even ones that were in the know, and Emma suspected this was the first time Ferd had actually seen one of the creatures.

“Okay,” Emma said. “Then tell me about Madame de Pompadour.”

Rajji frowned. “Who?” Emma looked at Ferd, as though to say _See?_

“The, um, the, the royal mistress of Louis XV?” Ferd finally managed to say, still recovering. Rajji stared at him blankly. “Mid-eighteenth century? Patron of French art and architecture? Political advisor? Um…” Ferd took a moment to pull up a portrait on his phone and showed it to Rajji, “Jeanne Antoinette Poisson?”

“Oh, _Jeanne_ ,” Rajji said, brightening. “Oh, I liked Jeanne, she was such fun, we were always sneaking around that palace together. And she had the _cutest_ baby.”

“Sneaking around?” Ferd asked. “To do what? Court intrigue? Meeting with lovers, spying on her enemies, that kind of thing?” Rajji shrugged. “Okay… um, she was friends with Voltaire, right? What was he like?” Ferd asked.

“Who?”

Ferd sighed. “I think I see your point,” he said to Emma.

“Ferd! Ferd?” Emma could hear her uncle calling from down the hall, his voice growing closer, until he finally found them. “Ferd, are you ready to-oh.” Jonathan stared in surprise for a moment. “Hi, Rajji,” he said softly.

In one fluid motion, Rajji flew upwards, flaring her tail out and shaking it angrily as she bared her fangs and hissed. Then she disappeared again. Jonathan stared at the spot she'd been occupying a moment earlier. “That was… new,” he said.

“Oh, yeah,” Emma said. “I forgot to tell you, Rajji’s not speaking to you for the next two hundred years.”

“Oh.” Jonathan sighed wearily. “I'll be sure to mark it on my calendar,” he said. He looked at Ferd. “Can we go home?” he asked.

“Really?” Ferd sounded surprised. “I figured you’d want to keep working until curfew. It’s not even six.”

Jonathan shrugged. “I'm tired.”

Ferd nodded. “Yeah, of course,” he said, quickly shuffling all his papers into his messenger bag and getting up. Emma waved to her uncles as they left, then returned to her homework.

 

* * *

 

Emma grabbed two prisoners and teleported them across the city, to the basement that Alya had given them the location of a few days earlier. Then she teleported back to the cell, underneath the shield her brother was holding up.

“Wow,” Louis said, as she reappeared, “I don’t know what the Order’s hitting us with, but it packs way more of a punch than usual.” He grinned, but he was sweating.

“They’re not going to break through, are they?” Emma asked, concerned.

“Nah,” Louis said, his palms still spread out as he held the shield up. He’d used his strongest shield, the one with the knockback, so Emma wasn’t worried. But it was also the one with the timer, so she moved quickly, grabbing two more prisoners and disappearing.

Dani’s Champion, a young brunette woman, flicked her wrist, and one of the Order guards pelting the shield with blasts from a wand went flying across the room. “Like that?’ she asked the voice inside her head, then grinned a moment later and did it again.

Two more trips later, Emma reappeared in the now otherwise empty cell, grabbed Louis and the Champion, and teleported again. In the split second before she disappeared, though, something at the corner of her vision caught her eye.

“Nice work,” Louis said as they reappeared in the basement. Emma disappeared without responding, but reappeared several seconds later with Dani in tow.

“So that’s it, right?” Dani asked. “Alya said she’d take it from here.” Alya had been very insistent that Emma do as little teleporting as possible, given that it was her first mission since she’d missed a day of school last week.

“Great, let’s go home,” Louis said.

“There was someone else in the cell,” Emma said, her face drawn and pale.

“What? No there wasn't,” Dani said.

“I saw someone in the corner. Right before I teleported. Curled up, under one of those prison blankets.”

“No, you didn't,” Dani insisted. “Aunt Alya said nine people, and we got nine people. Besides, if there was someone else I would have felt them.”

“Maybe they were being blocked somehow. Maybe Alya didn't know.”

“And maybe your eyes were just playing tricks on you.”

“It can't hurt to go back,” Emma said.

“I can't go back, I'm about to lose my transformation,” Louis said.

“Me, too,” Dani said. “And there's nobody to go back for, I promise.”

“I'll just turn invisible and go back on my own,” Emma said.

“What?” Dani asked. “No you won't. Jesus, you're supposed to be the responsible one.”

“It'll take less than ten seconds either way,” Emma said, “and the longer we argue about it the more likely it is that whoever it was gets moved. I'm going. Rajji, Eyes Unseen!” Emma disappeared.

“Just-what the hell!” Dani groaned. “What has gotten into her lately?”

Louis shrugged, and he and Dani looked at one another, their annoyance slowly turning to apprehension as the seconds ticked by.

“Eight,” Louis muttered, “nine… ten.” Louis and Dani looked at each other for another few seconds.

“Well, _fuck_ ,” Dani swore.

 

* * *

 

Emma rematerialized invisibly in the cell and glanced around. The guards were still recovering from the sudden attack, helping each other up and such. Emma turned back to the corner, to the blanket, to-

Nothing. Dani had been right after all. It had just been the blanket, crumpled up in such a way that it looked like someone was lying beneath it, if you didn’t look too closely. Which, obviously, Emma hadn’t.

 _Oh, well_ , Emma thought. _No harm in-_

Emma was struck by the most blinding pain she’d ever felt in her life. It was so sudden, and so intense, that she didn’t even have time to wonder how she’d been observed, how the guard had known where to aim the wand. Her mind immediately went into survival mode, and she teleported-

No. She _tried_ to teleport, and the pain, which she’d thought was unbearable before, doubled. Gasping, she grabbed a fan off her hip and started spinning it, deflecting the second bolt of energy aimed right at her. With her other hand she grabbed her side, where she’d been struck. Her costume was burned all around it-Emma hadn’t even thought that was possible.

Clenching her jaw, Emma tried to teleport-and again, it did nothing but increase her pain.

 _I’m going to die here_ , she thought suddenly. _At fourteen. Never even told a boy I liked him_.

 _What a stupid, useless waste of a dying thought_ , another part of herself thought, annoyed. _Focus. Get OUT_.

As her fan deflected another bolt, as the guards cautiously moved in, Emma took a deep breath, braced herself, and with all her focus, all her might, willed herself to ignore the pain and teleport out of the cell.

And everything went black.


	26. Henri Lavillant-Couffaine

Dinner in the Lavillant-Couffaine home had been a happy thing, once. Rose insisted on a total ban of all distractions: No phones, no books, no TV. It was official Family Bonding time, and while most of Henri’s friends thought this sounded annoying, he actually did like it.

Juleka’s stories tended to be the most interesting, given that she worked as a makeup artist for the TV station, but the stories Rose brought home from the children’s hospital, where she worked as a nurse, could be pretty great, too. Rose had a knack for seeing the bright side of everything, and just about anything sounded uplifting when she was telling it. Henri and Violet were still in school, of course, but Henri usually had one or two interesting things to share from whatever piece of nonfiction he was currently reading, and Violet had an unlimited supply of stories from her various extracurriculars.

For the past two months, family dinners had been noticeably more subdued.

“What was that letter that arrived earlier?” Rose asked as Juleka sat down. “It looked important.”

“Oh. That,” Juleka replied, her voice flat. “It was the refund check for the plane tickets.” A silence fell over the family.

Henri’s mothers had felt it very important to always be as open as possible about where he’d come from, how they'd become a family. He’d been told so young, he couldn't remember _not_ knowing that he was adopted, or that he'd been born in Ho Chi Minh City. He'd grown up hearing the story of the adoption, how his mothers had flown around the world to get him. He had vague memories of going when he was five, to get Violet, and much clearer memories of the four of them going back when he was ten. But that had been five years ago, and Violet had been too young to really appreciate it. About a year ago she'd started asking more and more questions about Vietnam. Rose and Juleka, who wanted to do everything they could to support that curiosity, decided that the time had come for another trip, and started making arrangements. They'd planned to go over Christmas vacation that year.

That flight, like all intercontinental flights for the foreseeable future, had been cancelled.

In the grand scheme of things, in the wake of everything that had happened, Henri supposed that it ranked pretty low as far as tragedies went.

“How was school, Henri?” Rose asked, changing the subject. Her son shrugged.

“Fine. We started the optics unit in physics.” Henri didn't elaborate the way he normally would have, but his mother didn't push it.

“Vi?” Rose asked, turning instead to her daughter. “I heard from one of the other moms that submissions for the school poetry anthology are open.”

“I'm not doing that,” Violet said.

Her mothers exchanged a worried glance. “You love writing,” Juleka finally said.

“They're screening all the entries this year,” Violet said. “They're banning the ones they don't like. It's a farce. What's the point?”

Juleka sighed. “Ah. Well… keep writing anyway, okay? For yourself.”

“Sure,” Violet mumbled. She looked at Rose. “Anything happen at the hospital, Mama?”

“Oh, we’re starting to plan the Christmas events,” Rose said brightly. “We’ve had so many volunteers step forward this year, it's really-”

Rose was cut off, quite suddenly, by a deafening crack. All four of them instinctively ducked. Half a second later, they heard a loud crash coming from the next room. For a moment they all stared at each other, eyes wide with fear. Then Juleka took a breath. “Henri,” she said quietly, “you and I are going to go investigate that. Rose, you and Violet stay here, wait for me to say it's safe.” She got up slowly, grabbing her knife as she walked around the table. Henri joined her, and even though he was already more than a head taller than his mother she stepped in front of him insistently, protectively, as they made their way to the family room.

Upon entering the room, Juleka and Henri both froze.

In the middle of the living room, lying unconscious between the two halves of their now-broken wooden coffee table, was the superhero Hera. Henri hadn't seen footage of her since the public trial over a month ago, but she wasn't exactly difficult to identify. The WANTED posters helped, too.

“Rose?” Juleka called out. “Get in here.”

There was the sound of hurried footsteps, and Rose and Violet appeared. “Oh, my,” she gasped.

“Is that _Hera_?” Violet asked, as her mother rushed forward and knelt by the unconscious hero’s side. “Why'd she break the table?”

“I doubt she meant to,” Henri said, moving forward slowly, careful not to crowd his mother. “She probably just… landed on it, right?”

Rose took three seconds to evaluate the situation, and then a look came over her face. Henri had seen that look a few times in his life, whenever he or his sister had been seriously injured. It marked a curious transformation of Rose’s, from ‘sweet and gentle’ to ‘sweet, gentle, and ruthlessly efficient’. “Violet, get my first aid kit,” Rose said, in a tone that was impossible not to obey. “Henri, shut all the blinds.”

“Which one?” Violet asked, as her brother rushed to the window.

“The big one, sweetheart. _All_ the blinds, Henri, in the entire house, not just this room.” Rose put a finger to the hero’s neck. “She has a pulse. It's strong. Her breathing’s good, I don't see any signs of bleeding…” Rose bit her lip, then looked up at her wife. “Normally I wouldn't move someone who’d fallen onto a table back-first hard enough to break it in half,” she said, “but I can't call paramedics. Can superheroes even _get_ spinal injuries? I know I've seen footage of Chat Noir being thrown through a brick wall before, and he got up from that like it was nothing. I don't see any signs of back trauma. If it's safe to move her, we should.”

“It's probably safe,” Juleka said.

“Done,” Henri said, rushing into the room and breathing heavily.

“Good. Pick Hera up, and get her into your room, it's the only one without windows.” Henri rushed to obey, and as he got his arm under the hero and lifted her up, Rose gasped.

“What _is_ that?” Juleka asked, looking at the hero’s side. “A burn?”

“Maybe? It doesn't look like anything I've ever seen. I'll get a better look at it once Henri’s put her down.”

Henri carried her down the hall as quickly as he could. She was lighter than he'd expected her to be. Henri was trying to focus on little things like that instead of the much bigger ‘What the _fuck_ ’ looming over everything. Henri didn't know what else he might have to do before this was over, and he wasn't sure he'd be able to stay functional if he got distracted by thinking about how completely insane this was.

Violet rushed ahead and opened the bedroom door for her brother. Henri laid the hero down as gently as he could, taking care not to disturb the large burn on her side-which, now that he was looking at it closely, couldn't have been a burn at all. The color was off, the skin unbroken but warped. It had a _wrongness_ to it, it hurt to look at for too long, as though Henri’s eyes couldn't accept its existence in the world.

Rose grabbed Henri’s desk chair on her way in and pulled it over to the side of the bed. She set her first aid kit on the nightstand, opened it, and pulled out a pair of scissors. Turning to Hera’s side, she began to cut away at the hero’s costume around the burn-or at least, she tried to. “Why isn't this…” Groaning, she set the scissors aside and reached for one of the antiseptic wipes. “At least I can get this clean, even if-”

There was a bright flash of light, and quite suddenly the four of them were looking at a much more familiar person. It was Violet who finally broke the silence.

“That’s Henri’s _girlfriend_!” she exclaimed in disbelief.

“No, she’s not,” Henri said automatically, because even in the most extreme and unbelievable of circumstances, sibling bickering is a constant of the universe.

“That's Emma Agreste,” Juleka said. “That's Marinette’s daughter. How…”

“It doesn't matter who she is,” Rose said firmly. “She's a patient.” She pulled the girl’s shirt up a few inches. “And she still has this nasty burn, and now she seems to be wearing something that can actually be _removed_ , so you three are going to leave the room and let me fix her up as best as I can, got it?” Juleka nodded and herded their children out. Henri was still staring at Emma in shock, and needed a slightly more assertive push than usual.

Juleka closed the door behind them and took a deep breath, then looked at her son. “Did you have any idea?” she asked quietly. Henri shook his head. “I wonder if her family does. God, they’ve been through so much already. They must be worried sick. Do you know where she’s living? Since her parents…” Juleka couldn’t finish the sentence.

“Her grandparents, I think,” Henri said. “The Agreste ones.”

Juleka nodded. “I'll check the school directory.” She headed to the next room, the makeshift office that held every piece of paper their family might ever need. Juleka went to a precarious stack near the phone and fished out a small booklet, then flipped through it. “Agreste, Agreste… here we go. Agreste, Gabriel and Adele.” She picked up the house phone, then started dialing.

“What if someone’s listening?” Henri asked.

“I’ll make something up. They need to know she’s safe, that’s all.” Juleka finished dialing and held the phone to her ear. It wasn’t until about three rings in that she remembered her considerable phone anxiety, and by then it was too late.

“Hello?” a woman’s voice answered, somewhat frantically.

“Hello? Hi. Hi. Yes, hello, this is-I’m from-this is Ms. Couffaine, my son Henri goes to school with your grandchildren? This is Adele Agreste, right? And I was just-well, this is-”

“I’m sorry,” Adele said, and now she sounded annoyed, “I’d love to donate to whatever you’re fundraising for, but I’m in the middle of a… family crisis at the moment, and I really don’t have time to be-”

“Is it Emma?” Juleka interrupted in a rush. There was a very heavy silence for a moment. “Is… is the family crisis that Emma didn’t make it home before curfew?” Juleka went on.

“…Yes,” Adele said slowly, “as a matter of fact, it is. How did you know that?”

“Well, she’s here,” Juleka said, a little too loudly. “She-my son-that is-oh, you’re going to kill me,” and here Juleka let out a very fake laugh that was completely unrecognizable to both her children, “but, well, apparently Henri got it into his head to take Emma on some romantic walk along the Seine in the pitch dark right before curfew. The kid’s a genius but sometimes he doesn’t have the sense God gave a squirrel, you know what I mean? And he gets all his ideas about romance from books, you know, he’s never done _anything_ like this before, you can bet I’ll be talking to him about it-”

Violet snorted, and Henri idly wondered if this was what death felt like.

“-but, well, anyway, Emma tripped and fell and banged herself up pretty good and Henri panicked and brought her home because his mother’s a nurse. His _other_ mother, not me, I’m not a nurse, I’m not talking about myself in the third person, my wife is a nurse-Anyway, Rose is fixing her up now, she’s very good, I’m sure your granddaughter will be fine, but it's past curfew so she’ll have to spend the night and you can come by tomorrow morning and pick her up, we’re happy to have her, and that. Is. What. Happened.”

There was a pause. “I see,” Adele said finally.

“She’s very, _very_ safe here,” Juleka added. “We’ll protect her-I mean, we’ll take care of her.”

“Yes, I understand. I… I can’t tell you what a relief it is to hear that. I’ll come over to get her the minute curfew’s over, if that’s alright.”

“Oh, of course, of course. Looking forward to meeting you!” Juleka hung up and stared at the phone in her hand for a moment. “Was that okay?” she asked her children in a quiet, stunned voice. “I blacked out.” Henri and Violet exchanged a glance.

“Sure, Mom,” Henri said, gently taking the phone out of his mother’s hand and placing it back on the receiver. “It went great.”

“Maybe next time though, if someone needs to lie on a tapped phone line, we get Mama to do it?” Violet suggested. Juleka nodded slowly.

“Yes, that’s probably a good idea,” she said.

 

* * *

 

The three of them waited in the living room for Rose to give them permission to reenter Henri’s room. They sat in total silence, mostly just staring at the broken coffee table. Rose finally called them in about half an hour later.

“I've done everything I can think of,” Rose said softly, sitting by Emma’s side. “She’s got a little bit of a fever, and that burn. I've never seen anything like it, I don't see many magical injuries at the hospital even nowadays, but if it's at all like a regular burn it's not as bad as it could be. If there's anything else wrong it’s not physical.”

Emma stirred just then, and Rose leaned over her, brushing the hair out of her face.

“Sweetie?” she whispered. “Are you waking up? How do you feel?”

“Mom?” Emma whispered.

A look passed over Rose’s face, and Henri knew it was taking his mother every inch of self-control she had to keep from bursting into tears. “No, sweetheart,” Rose whispered gently. “It's Ms. Lavillant. Remember me?”

Emma’s eyes remained closed, but her face twisted up. “It hurts,” she whispered, and something broke inside Henri. He'd never felt like this before, he'd never felt so helpless, so useless.

“Violet, go run and get a glass of water,” Rose said, and Violet hurried out of the room to the kitchen. Rose turned to the first-aid kit and dug through it, pulling out a pill bottle. She took two capsules out, Violet returned, and Rose leaned over Emma once more.

“Here, sweetheart, these will help.” She managed to get Emma to swallow the pills without too much trouble, but the effort seemed to have exhausted the girl completely and she fell silent, her breathing growing steady and deep almost instantly. Rose sighed.

“The best thing to do now is just let her rest. We can take turns staying up with her tonight.”

“I'll go first,” Henri said immediately.

“Alright, sweetheart,” Rose said, getting up from the chair so he could sit down. She kissed the top of his head. “Wake me up in a few hours, okay?” He nodded, and Rose and Juleka left their son’s room with Violet, closing the door behind them. They hugged their daughter and kissed her goodnight, and watched as she went to her bedroom.

The second Violet’s door was shut, the two women were in each other’s arms, Juleka’s head resting atop Rose’s.

It is a very common nightmare for a parent, the thought of dying and leaving one’s child behind. But the thought of that child then being given such a burden, carrying such an impossible weight, just as the world is twisted in unimaginable ways-that was another thing altogether. There was no need for either of the mothers to say this out loud, though. Each knew exactly what the other was thinking. They simply took a few moments to hold each other close.

 

* * *

 

About two hours in, Emma started to groan. Henri quickly put his book aside. “Emma? Are you okay?”

Emma opened her eyes about halfway and looked around. “This is Henri’s room,” she mumbled. “We worked on that science project here.”

“That's right,” Henri said, leaning over her. “How are you feeling?”

Emma closed her eyes again. “What am I doing here?” she asked. Her voice was soft, unfocused.

“Um. We were kind of hoping you could tell us,” Henri said. “You kind of just… appeared.”

Emma let out a weak laugh, her eyes still closed. “That sounds like me,” she said.

“Do you remember anything?” Henri asked.

“Order bastards hit me with some spell,” she mumbled. “My fault.”

“No, it wasn't,” Henri said automatically.

“Dumb. Should've listened to Dani. Don't tell her I said that. Thinks she knows everything just because she's an empath now.”

“Wow. Okay. You know, on second thought, we don't actually have to talk about anything at all if-”

“Ugh, Grandma’s gonna _kill_ me,” Emma interrupted.

“No, she won't,” Henri said, thinking-quite incorrectly-that this was a much safer line of conversation. “I'm sure she loves you."

Emma shook her head-still weakly, everything she did was still so weak. “You don't get it, it hits too close to home. I went back _alone_. Grandma went alone and it was the last thing she ever did as a superhero. She lost four years, she missed my dad growing up, she doesn't talk about it but you can see her thinking about it all the time. Every time the three of us leave on a rescue mission she's thinking ‘Is this the time they don't come back?’ And I went without Dani or Louis and there wasn't even anybody there to rescue.”

Henri nodded nervously. “Uh huh. Uh huh. Cool, cool. So you're just, like, _really_ talkative with a couple of painkillers in you, huh?”

Emma grinned and finally opened her eyes, but they remained unfocused. “Don't tell the Order,” she whispered, giggling slightly.

“I promise,” Henri said, grinning back. “Um… since you're up, can I ask you something?”

“You want to know more? Jeez, Henri, a girl’s gotta have some secrets.”

“Nothing like that,” Henri said quickly. "I was just wondering… did you pick the name yourself? Hera?”

Emma nodded. “Mm hmm.”

Henri grinned. “I thought so. I like it. Like in Greek Mythology, right? Hera putting eyes on peacock tails to spy on Io?”

“Ha!” Emma grinned triumphantly. “I knew people would get the reference. You should have heard Dani. ‘Nobody’s gonna get that,’ like her dumb name’s so great.” Emma sighed. “Nah, Mariposa’s pretty good too, I guess.” Emma yawned.

“You should go back to sleep,” Henri said. “You've been through a lot.”

“You have no idea,” Emma mumbled. She reached out her hand and grabbed Henri’s. “You'll stay?”

Henri nodded. “Yeah,” he whispered, as Emma closed her eyes once more, “I’ll stay.”


	27. Louis

Louis opened his eyes. “Found her,” he said. Dani and his grandparents, who had been waiting for over an hour at this point, all started when he spoke.

“So she _is_ at Henri’s house?” Dani asked, leaning forward from her position on the couch.

“I think so,” Louis said. “I still don’t have a great handle on matching energy locations with physical ones, though.”

“Is she hurt?” Adele asked. She’d been pacing around the room during Louis’ trance, but she’d hurried to his side the second he’d broken the tense silence of the room.

Louis hesitated, but only for a moment. “Yes,” he told his grandmother. “Yes, she is. Whatever they hit her with ripped into her energy directly. It’s a wonder she was able to teleport away at all. I think I can fix it, though. Tomorrow morning.”

“Why wait?” Dani asked. “Who cares about curfew, let’s just transform and take the rooftops over. I shouldn’t have any trouble avoiding Order guards as Mariposa.”

Louis shook his head. “Henri’s family is risking enough as it is,” he said. “They don’t need two superheroes coming in through the front door. All it would take would be the wrong neighbor looking out their window at the wrong time, and your powers can’t anticipate something like that. Emma would never forgive us if we got Henri’s family arrested.”

Dani sighed. “You’re right,” she said, somewhat begrudgingly.

“You’re quite certain your sister will be alright waiting until tomorrow morning?” Louis’ grandfather asked. He was on the far side of the room, standing rigidly near a large window, his hands clasped behind his back. Dani and Adele were both giving him somewhat nervous glances from time to time. Louis got the distinct impression that despite outward appearances, Gabriel’s emotional state was uncharacteristically turbulent.

“Yeah,” Louis said. “I can heal her at Henri’s house tomorrow morning. She’s asleep now, I think. She’ll be okay tonight.”

Gabriel nodded curtly. “Very well,” he said. “In that case, either your grandmother or myself will drive you over. I’m sure we’d all like to go, but all four of us driving over together might look suspicious, so-”

“Dibs,” Adele interrupted. Louis and Dani might have laughed at the childishness of this if things weren’t so serious, if their grandmother hadn’t looked so worried. She’d gone back to pacing, and was now biting a nail.

“Fine,” her husband replied. He glanced at the clock on the room’s mantlepiece. “It’s getting late. Louis, you should get some rest. You’ll need to get up earlier than usual, and be at your best for healing.”

Louis nodded and got up. His grandmother intercepted him on his way out, pulling him into a much tighter hug than usual and kissing the top of his head. “Goodnight, Louis,” she whispered. “I love you very much, you know that, right?”

“Of course, Grandma. We all know that. We love you, too.”

Louis made his way upstairs, but instead of going to the bedroom he walked past it and entered the small sitting room he’d mostly taken over, for meditation and other Guardian-related training activities. Wayzz emerged from hiding as they entered, floating in front of Louis.

“Could you see her?” Louis asked. “The way I could?”

Wayzz nodded. “Your assessment of her condition was accurate,” the kwami said. “She will be quite alright waiting until the morning.”

Louis bit the inside of his cheek. “You haven’t taught me how to heal damage like that,” he said nervously.

“You’ve learned some of what you need to know,” Wayzz replied. “The rest I can teach you tonight.”

“Good,” Louis said. “Let’s start.”

 

* * *

 

Louis and his grandmother didn’t talk much on the drive over to the Lavillant-Couffaine house the next morning. Adele drove with an intense focus, and she clutched the steering wheel so tightly her knuckles were white. Louis’ abilities didn’t overlap with Dani’s at all, so he couldn’t actually sense what she was feeling now, but he could see her energy, her aura, and that told him quite clearly that his grandmother was inclined to blame herself for a lot of things.

“Emma’s going to be fine,” Louis told her.

Adele nodded. “Of course she is, sweetheart,” she said, reaching over and patting his knee. Louis supposed she’d misinterpreted his attempt at offering comfort as a bid for it instead.

Then again, Louis thought, maybe she hadn’t misinterpreted anything at all. She was an empath, after all.

Fifteen minutes after curfew had ended, they’d parked and were walking up to the front door, Louis lugging a backpack filled with everything he’d need. Juleka answered the door, with Henri standing close behind her.

“Hi, Ms. Couffaine,” Louis said. “Hi, Henri.” Henri nodded at him as his mother ushered Louis and his grandmother inside.

“You must be Adrien’s mother,” Juleka said as they entered. “It’s nice to-”

The second Juleka closed the front door, Adele burst into tears. Louis and Henri watched, somewhat awkwardly, as Juleka immediately grabbed a box of tissues from a nearby table and offered them, while putting her other arm comfortingly around Adele’s shoulders.

“Oh, God, I’m so sorry,” Adele said, “I just-you can’t understand what it’s been like, after losing their parents-I’ve just been so terrified of something like this happening, I don’t know how I’m going to-”

“Shh, it’s okay. Emma’s fine, I promise,” Juleka told her. Adele wiped at her eyes uselessly.

“I’m a mess, aren’t I? I can’t see Emma like this, she’s been through enough already without me-”

“It’s fine, Grandma,” Louis interrupted. “I should go in alone first anyway, I’ve got a lot of healing stuff to do.”

“Come into the kitchen, I’ll make tea,” Juleka said, leading Adele away. Louis looked up at Henri once they were gone.

“Sorry,” he said. “My grandmother’s kind of an easy crier even when her grandkids aren’t, you know, almost dying.”

“It’s fine,” Henri said. “Mama’s an easy crier, too. Mom’s a natural at dealing with it by now.”

Louis nodded. “So… what really happened?”

“Um…” Henri started walking down the hallway, and Louis followed him. “Your sister appeared in here,” Henri said, pointing into the living room. “I’m not sure where, exactly, because we were all in the kitchen, but somewhere above the coffee table is my guess, ‘cause she was unconscious in the middle of it when we found her.”

“Oh. Jeez. Sorry about that,” Louis said, looking at the broken pieces of the table. “I bet my grandparents could replace it, if-”

“Don’t worry about it, Mom was looking for an excuse to get a new one. Anyway, we brought her into my room so Mama could examine her, and that’s about when her transformation dropped and we realized she was, you know, Emma. So Mom called your grandparents, Mama bandaged up Emma’s side and gave her a couple of painkillers, and she’s mostly been asleep since then. She woke up about an hour ago.”

Louis nodded, then hugged Henri impulsively. “Thanks,” he said.

“Oh, sure,” Henri said, somewhat sheepishly, as Louis pulled away. “I’d do anything for Emma-I mean _we’d_ do anything for Emma. Or any of you guys. I told you that on the first day of school. Anything you need.”

Louis snorted. “This isn’t exactly what you thought you were signing up for, I’m guessing.”

“No, but…” Henri shrugged, “I mean, after everything you and your sisters have done for Paris, it doesn’t really compare, does it?”

“Oh,” Louis said, his face falling slightly. “So… did Emma say…”

“Oh, yeah, she was pretty talkative at one point, after the painkillers kicked in,” Henri said, somewhat apologetically. “She mentioned you and Dani being her partners.”

“Did she say anything else?” Louis asked, trying and failing to keep his voice casual.

“Yeah, she said something about your grandmother being a superhero, too. I didn’t really follow most of it. Sorry. If I’d known she was gonna spill all your family secrets I wouldn’t have stayed up with her, but I didn’t want her to panic if she woke up alone in a strange place.” Louis gave Henri a funny look. “What?”

“Nothing, nothing,” Louis said, thinking that it was somewhat refreshing Henri thought that might actually be all their family secrets. “So which room is Emma in?”

“Oh, right. Here.” Henri led Louis a bit further down the hallway and opened a door. Emma waved at him from the bed.

“Hi,” Emma said as they entered, trying to sound casual but mostly still just sounding weak.

“Jesus, you look terrible,” Louis said instantly.

“What? No she doesn’t-no, you don’t,” Henri assured her indignantly. Emma smiled.

“I’m guessing Louis is talking about something only he can see,” Emma said. She looked at her brother. “Louis, I get that you have a lot more to learn than me and Dani, but maybe you should consider skipping ahead a few lessons to the one on bedside manner?”

“Sorry,” Louis said. “I just… haven’t seen anything like this. It caught me off-guard. It’s fine, I’ll fix it.” Louis turned to Henri. “If you don’t mind, I’ve got some stuff to do and I’d rather not have an audience for it.”

“Right, right,” Henri said. He looked back at Emma. “I’ll just be down the hall if you need me.”

“Thanks,” she said, and he left. Emma looked back at Louis as he shut the door. “You gonna yell at me?” she asked, sinking back into the pillow.

“Nah,” Louis said. “You’ll get enough of that from everyone else in the family, I’m sure.” He started pulling stuff out of his bag. “Although maybe they’ll give you a break if it was some kind of Order trick. Was it?”

Emma shook her head gently. “I doubt it,” she said. “I was just… ever since you insisted on limiting my teleporting, I can’t stop wondering how many people are going to die before this is over. People who wouldn’t have died if I could have kept up.”

“That’s not your fault,” Louis said.

“I know that,” Emma said. Her voice was detached, unemotional. “But some people are going to die who wouldn’t have. That’s just numbers.” She sighed. “Anyway, I knew I was probably just seeing things, but there was that sliver of a chance that I’d left somebody behind, and I couldn’t stand it. It was dumb. It won’t happen again.”

Louis nodded. “Can I, um, see the wound? I mean, I can see it,” he gestured vaguely to the air above Emma’s side, “but I need to see it physically, too.”

Wordlessly, Emma pushed the blankets down and pulled her tee shirt up a few inches. “Henri’s mom patched it up,” she explained, as she pulled the bandage off.

“She did a good job,” Louis said. He pulled a small pointed pendulum out of his bag and began swinging it gently over Emma. It tugged insistently towards the burn, in defiance of physics, every time it passed over her.

“Is that good or bad?” Emma asked, eyeing the pendulum suspiciously. Louis shrugged.

“Could be worse,” he said evasively. “Can I see your pendant? The one you got from Grandma Sabine’s attic?”

“Huh? Oh, right. I forgot about that.” Emma pulled the necklace out from under her shirt, then gasped. The wooden pendant, with Emma’s Chinese name carved into it, was burned solid black, and a large crack ran down its length. “Jeez, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Louis said calmly. “It did its job.” Emma pulled it off and handed it to him. “It wasn’t really able to absorb too much of the hit,” he continued, “but who knows. You might not have been able to teleport at all if you hadn’t been wearing this. Oh, that reminds me, did you come here intentionally? Or was it just the dumbest luck imaginable? I need to know just how busted your powers are.”

Emma’s cheeks turned slightly pink. “I was trying to go home,” she said, “but I don’t think it was entirely random. Henri kind of popped into my head, right before I managed to get out. It’s not like I haven’t been distracted while teleporting before, though. This is the first time the destination’s been affected.”

“This place is a lot closer to the station than ours is,” Louis said, putting the pendulum away. “Maybe Rajji couldn’t get you all the way home and this was the best she could do. Speaking of, where is Rajji?”

Sighing, Emma reached inside a pocket and pulled the kwami out. “She won’t wake up,” Emma said.

Louis gently picked Rajji up. “She’ll be fine, too,” he promised his sister. “Right, Wayzz?”

Wayzz flew out of one of Louis’ many pockets and hovered over his fellow kwami. “She will,” he said. He looked up at Louis. “It would be better if they were healed together.” Nodding, Louis placed Rajji on Emma’s chest, over her heart. He then started pulling more things out of his bag, stones and bowls and bags of herbs, and all manner of odd-looking trinkets.

“Is this going to take long?” Emma asked.

“Yes.” Louis looked over at his sister. “You could take another painkiller, if you need to.”

“No thanks,” Emma said. “My memories of last night are a little fuzzy, but they're clear enough to know that me and painkillers apparently do not mix.”

“Yeah,” Louis said, as he got back to work setting everything up. “Henri mentioned that.”

Emma’s cheeks turned pink again. “Sorry,” she mumbled.

“It's okay. We’ll figure it out. Maybe they’ll agree to some kind of memory wipe, or-”

“ _What_? Don't you dare even ask, Louis,” Emma said, suddenly angry.

Louis blinked, confused. “Why not? I understand why you like Henri knowing, but-”

“That is so not it,” Emma said indignantly.

“Then why-”

“Aren't memory spells how the Order deals with problems?”

For a moment, Louis was speechless. “That's not fair,” he said. “This wouldn't be anything like what the Order did to Mom and Dad. It would just rewrite one night, it wouldn't take anything important away from them.”

“You… you think last night wasn't important? One of the most wanted people in the city appeared out of thin air in their living room, unconscious, completely helpless. And they _immediately_ , without question, began to do everything they could to help. Before they even knew it was somebody they cared about. Knowing full well it was an executable offense. And you think that's not important.”

“I-”

“You know I looked up all the akuma victims from 2016, after our first mission,” Emma continued. “Dani asked me to, she wanted to know in advance who else might be immune to her powers, like Aunt Alya. _Both_ of Henri’s moms were akumatized back then, did you know that?”

“No, I-”

“Well, they were. They were forced to be villains. They can't ever be Champions. But last night, they got to be heroes anyway. And they did that all on their own. That means something, Louis. You can't just take it away.”

Louis kept setting everything up, not looking Emma in the eye. “You’re acting like I _want_ to take it away from them,” he said defensively. “I don't, I just want to be safe, that's all.”

“Well, I felt really safe last night,” Emma said. “I feel really safe knowing good people like Ms. Lavillant and Ms. Couffaine want to help us, want to look out for us. Isn’t that safer than secrecy?”

Louis sighed. “It's not that simple. Civilians knowing is a bad idea. Even well-intentioned civilians. Paris learned that lesson the hard way thirty years ago.”

Emma rolled her eyes. “Is that really the lesson you want to take away? Sure, if Grandma had never told Uncle Jonathan about her Miraculous, he never would have become Hawkmoth. But there’s a million other things that led to it, too. It was a really complicated, messed-up situation. And Uncle Jonathan helped Grandma and Grandfather for years before it was an issue. If the result of last night is that Henri’s family is incredibly helpful and we take down the Order, and then in _twenty years_ it comes back to bite us, honestly? I’d take that deal.”

“Yeah, well, twenty years isn’t as long for me as it is for you,” Louis muttered. Emma rolled her eyes again. “Okay, yes, I see your point, but… well, ‘telling civilians is a bad idea’ is the lesson that the last Guardian took from the Hawkmoth situation, and he knew a lot more about being the Guardian than I do.”

Emma sighed. She began to gently stroke her sleeping kwami with her index finger as Louis continued to work. “Can I say something? Bluntly?” she asked.

Louis’ eyes widened. “This isn’t you being blunt already?”

“Ha ha. Point taken.” Emma took a breath and paused for a moment, gathering her thoughts. “Louis… I get that your job is a lot harder than mine or Dani’s is. A lot more intimidating, a lot scarier. Being the Guardian isn’t like being any other Miraculous holder. It probably takes years to really master, maybe decades. And you got it dumped on you in the middle of the biggest crisis in living memory, with no experience whatsoever. And the last Guardian had two centuries’ worth of experience. So it makes sense that you’d want to do what he’d do, stick with his decisions, trust in his wisdom. But… Louis, if the last Guardian were the right Guardian for this, he wouldn’t have passed his Miraculous on to you. He gave it to you because he thought you could be better. Trust _that_. Be better. Make your own decisions, decide for yourself what still works and what needs to be changed. You know?”

Louis kept working, and after a few minutes Emma stopped expecting a response. But eventually, he broke the silence. “I’ll… I won’t say anything. About memory spells or whatever.”

Emma smiled. “Thanks.”

 

* * *

 

“That should do it,” Louis said, over an hour later. Emma had dozed off slightly, and she shook herself awake, then immediately looked at the kwami still lying on her chest.

“Rajji?” Rajji’s eyes opened slowly, and then she flew up rapidly towards Emma’s face.

“You’re okay!” Rajji exclaimed, crying as she hugged Emma’s cheek.

“Yeah, I’m fine. You’re okay too, right?” Rajji nodded, and Emma breathed a sigh of relief. “I’m really sorry, Rajji, I didn’t mean to get you hurt.” She pet Rajji’s head gently.

“Can you sit up?” Louis asked his sister. Emma slowly pushed herself up to a sitting position. “How do you feel?”

“Fine.” Emma pulled her shirt up and looked at where the burn had been; only a very faint scar remained. “Wow, you’re getting really good at this stuff, huh?” She traced a finger over the scar lightly. “Nice work.”

“Thanks.” Louis offered his sister a hand and helped her to her feet. “Still feeling okay?” Emma nodded, and they left the room. They made it about three steps down the hallway before their grandmother appeared at the other end, from the kitchen. She closed the distance between them in seconds, rushing towards them and pulling Emma into a fierce embrace.

“You can’t _do_ that, Emma!” Adele said. Then, much more quietly, in the quietest of whispers, “God, what would I have told your mother? If you’d-” she cut herself off, unwilling to finish the sentence.

“Sorry,” Emma mumbled. “I was just trying to be a good hero.”

Adele sighed and kissed her granddaughter’s forehead. “I know, sweetheart, I know.”


	28. Danielle

“Wow, this place has a serious echo,” Monique said appreciatively as she stepped inside the Agreste mansion. “How big is it? Do I get a tour?”

“The project’s due in nineteen hours,” Dani replied, shutting the giant door behind them. “I bet a tour of this place takes at least twenty. We should probably just head upstairs and get to work.”

It had taken some convincing on Dani’s part, getting her grandparents to agree to let Dani have a friend over. Dani could hardly blame them, considering everything that went on under their roof. But Dani and Monique, both chronic procrastinators, had partnered up for a chemistry presentation due tomorrow, and so far they’d used exactly none of the two weeks they’d been given to work on it. Monique’s house was out due to extremely noisy renovations, so Dani had impulsively suggested working on it at the mansion. After minimal whining, and repeated assurances that Monique would be nowhere near anything dangerous, and would be gone well before curfew, Adele and Gabriel had finally, begrudgingly, allowed it. So now Dani was leading Monique through the foyer, upstairs, and to the library.

“So the wall to the left is one giant bookshelf,” Dani told Monique as they entered, “there's a table and some chairs in the middle we’ll be working at once we kick Louis out, a few couches to the far right, and a couple of small writing desks against the back wall.”

“Got it.” Monique extended her cane and began to sweep it back and forth as she walked around the perimeter of the room, learning its layout.

“Why can't I work in here, too?” Louis asked, annoyed.

“Because we actually need to _work_ ,” Dani said, crossing to the table and dropping her backpack on its surface, “and if it's the three of us we won't get more than five minutes done.”

“I won't say anything, I'll just-” Louis abruptly stopped talking. Dani followed his line of sight and just managed to keep from gasping. On the other side of the room, Monique had paused in front of a painting and was now doing her best to examine it intently.

Specifically, she was examining the painting that hid the safe containing the dormant Miraculouses.

“Who’s this?” Monique asked, after Louis and Dani had been staring at her speechlessly for a few moments. Her nose was a centimeter away from it.

“Uh… Manet,” Dani finally said.

“Huh. Weird.”

“What is?” Louis asked cautiously.

“Nothing, I just…” Monique shrugged, not taking her face away from the painting. “Well, I'm not usually one for purely visual art, you know? There's really only a handful of artists who have enough contrast in their paintings that I can actually see anything to appreciate, and Manet definitely isn't one of them. His paintings are all just a uniform blur. This one, too. But… I can't put my finger on it, but there's something about this one that-”

“Oh, wow, Louis, I just remembered I gotta show you something back in our room,” Dani said, grabbing her brother and dragging him to the door. “Be right back, Monique.” Dani pulled her brother out of the room, down the hall a few doors, and forcefully shoved him inside their bedroom before closing the door behind her. From her bed, Emma looked up and put her book down.

“What are you two-”

“What the _hell_ was that, Louis?” Dani demanded.

“Sorry, I probably should have seen that coming,” Louis said, embarrassed.

“Seen _what_ coming?” Emma asked.

“Monique and I were in the library when suddenly Monique went right up to the picture hiding the Miraculouses! It was crazy, it was like they were pulling her in or something, she-” Dani noticed the look she was getting from her brother. “What?”

“That's how you're going to phrase it? Really? When the “made a beeline” pun is _right_ there?”

“Oh my _God_ , Louis, this is serious! What if that happens with an Order guard or something?”

“It won't,” Louis said confidently. “Miraculouses have incredible defenses, and they don't want to be found by people who aren't suited to them.”

“So…” Dani furrowed her brow, “so you're saying they _do_ want to be found by Monique. Or at least, the Bee one does.”

“I mean, it's a little more complicated than that but yeah, basically.”

“So give it to her already!”

“It has to be the right time,” Louis said defensively. “You think we only became suited to ours on Occupation Day? We could've gotten these years ago if that was the only factor that mattered.”

“Gosh, what a nightmare that would have been,” Emma said dryly, “actually getting a few years of experience under our belt _before_ fighting the evil wizard army.”

“We wouldn't be fighting anyone,” Louis snapped. “We’d be… wherever Mom and Dad are.”

“Oh. Right.” Emma picked her book up and went back to reading, and Louis turned back to Dani.

“Just let me worry about the Miraculouses, okay?” Louis said. Dani rolled her eyes.

“Fine, fine,” she said.

“And maybe get back there and start your stupid project before Monique figures out just what’s so interesting about that painting, you kind of left her alone with it.”

“Right. Sorry.”

 

* * *

 

“What time is it?” Monique asked as they were wrapping up.

“Um,” Dani looked at her phone, “five to seven.” Monique’s eyes widened. “Sorry, I guess I lost track of the time. Are you going to get in trouble? We can drive you home, if-”

“It’s not that,” Monique interrupted. Her emotional signature had shifted dramatically. She was feeling anxious, excited, but also daring, almost. “I just wanted to get back by seven, because, well…” Monique leaned in and dropped her voice to a near whisper. “I was eavesdropping on my parents the other day, and this woman my mom works with told her she’d heard from-well, it doesn’t matter, but she heard there was going to be a _broadcast_. You know, a resistance one. My parents are going to be listening to it.”

“Oh. Wow,” Dani said, trying to sound excited.

“Have you ever heard one?”

“No,” Dani told her, not adding that this was because she usually just got the information from Alya herself, in person, before mission assignments.

“I heard the last one. I know everybody finds out everything that’s in them within a day or two, but hearing them live, it’s,” Monique grinned, “trust me, it’s something else entirely.” She reached down to her side and grabbed her backpack off the floor, then opened it and pulled out a small radio. She placed it gently on the table, but then her face fell and Dani caught a sudden flash of guilt. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t assume-if you’re uncomfortable I’ll put it away, I promise, I won’t think less of you, I know listening to them is illegal, it’s fine, I’ll get the recap later, I know your grandparents are really like strict and paranoid and stuff-”

“Monique, it’s fine,” Dani interrupted. “I want to listen to it.”

“Are you sure? Your grandparents-”

“Won’t find out. It’s fine, I promise.” Nodding, Monique turned on the set and began to tune it, running her fingers over the Braille numbers along the edge as she did so. The two girls listened to static for another minute or so before a familiar voice came on.

“Bonjour, Paris!” Alya said cheerfully. “This is Alya Lahiffe coming to you live from the heart of the city with all the news that’s fit to censor. First up, as always, is corrections to what passes for journalism nowadays. Pierre Laurent, arrested last Wednesday, was charged with and found guilty of attempting to bomb a primary school in the eighth arrondissement. What this patriot was _actually_ doing-”

“Isn’t she incredible?” Monique asked, as Alya’s report continued.

“Oh, yeah,” Dani agreed. She knew all the information already, but it really was something to hear Aunt Alya live. She sounded so _happy_ , in a way she almost never did in person. She must have missed being a reporter far more than Dani had realized.

“She’s so _brave_ ,” Monique added. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, the trio’s great, too, but Alya Lahiffe doesn’t have a secret identity or anything to keep her safe and she’s still doing so much. I think the Order might hate her even more than they hate the ‘deranged vigilantes’.”

“-finally made contact with our brothers and sisters in Lisbon,” Alya was now saying, “and I am happy to report that they’ve got _two_ new superheroes running circles around the Order, keeping citizens safe in these trying times-”

Monique squealed excitedly. “Two superheroes!” she exclaimed. “What’s that now, almost a dozen, right? And that’s only the places the Paris resistance has been able to make contact with, who _knows_ what London looks like, or Rome, or maybe some of the smaller cities, you know, the ones with less of an Order presence. There could be over twenty, who knows.”

“-is all for now, but stay tuned, Paris, because we’re not going anywhere. Vive la France!” The broadcast ended, and static resumed. Monique grinned at Dani.

“Well? Pretty great, huh?”

“Mm hmm.”

“You knew her, right?” Monique asked, catching Dani off guard. “You, like, used to babysit for her kid or something?”

“Oh… oh, yeah, I did. She was friends with my mom.”

“What’s she like in person? Really awesome?” Monique’s sheer admiration was starting to overwhelm Dani, make her feel slightly lightheaded, and it was getting difficult to think of how to answer correctly.

“Yeah, you know, I just thought of her as my mom’s friend I guess. I don’t think I would have pegged her as, you know…”

“The badass leader of a resistance movement?” Monique suggested.

“Yeah.” Dani glanced across the room, at the painting on the other side. God, Monique would be so _good_ , so excited to be a part of fighting the Order. Dani hadn’t realized just how much something like that would have meant to her friend before the broadcast, before feeling Monique’s raw enthusiasm. It took all Dani’s self-control to not cross the room, open the safe, and hand the Miraculous over to her friend herself.

“... but you can print it out, right?” Monique asked, snapping Dani out of her thoughts.

“Huh?”

“The presentation? We have to turn in a typed-up copy, you have a printer, right?”

“Oh, right, yeah.”

 

* * *

 

“Ready?” Emma held up her hands, her siblings each grabbed one, and they disappeared.

Clear across the city, the three heroes rematerialized on the roof across from the unmarked building their Aunt Alya had identified for them earlier. According to her informant, the Order had preemptively captured various family members of suspected rebels and was holding them in the basement across the street.

“Are they there?” Louis asked Dani.

“Yeah, there’s definitely something going on over there. Lots of fear.” She closed her eyes for a moment, concentrating. Then she opened them, horrified.

“What?” Louis asked. “What’s wrong?”

“They’re… they’re all just _kids_. Like, like little kids. No spouses, no teenagers, I think the oldest one can’t be older than seven.”

“Jesus,” Emma whispered. She took a moment to let this hit her fully, then she shook her head. “It’s awful,” she agreed, “but we can’t think about it right now, we have a mission to complete.”

“You don’t understand,” Dani said. “Even if I was willing to put a seven-year-old in danger by making them a Champion, which I'm very much not, I _can’t_. They're all just terrified, they're not feeling brave or heroic.”

“Oh.” Emma frowned. “Okay, so… so we don't use a Champion. We've done rescue missions without them before.”

“Not since the Order started using anti-teleportation fields, we haven't,” Dani said. “We need a Champion to take it down if we want to get in there and get those kids out.”

“What if we just, you know, went through the front door? Like normal people?” Louis suggested. “No offense,” he added, looking at Emma.

“That’ll take too long, we need the element of surprise. Even a few seconds could be too long, who knows what they’ll do to those kids if they see us coming.” Dani paced a little, then kicked the ledge in frustration. “Fuck. Fuck, fuck, _fuck_.”

“It's okay, we’ll think it through, we’ll figure it out,” Emma said, trying to make her voice soothing, steady. “We can-”

“I figured it out,” Dani interrupted. “I just really didn't want to resort to this. I thought I could get through the occupation without it. Obviously that was stupid of me.” She closed her eyes, held her hand out, and a few moments later a small white butterfly landed in her open palm. Dani cupped her other hand over it and focused.

“Resort to what?” Emma asked.

“Shh.”

“But I thought you said-”

“Emma. Please, _please_ shut up.” Louis shook his head at her and Emma fell silent, confused. She didn't realize what her sister was doing until Dani removed her top hand and sent the butterfly, now pitch black, gently fluttering away. A few minutes later, the butterfly had made its way inside the precinct and landed on an Order guard.

“Hello, Margaret,” Dani said. She made her voice low, inviting. Dani barely recognized it.

“Mariposa,” the guard hissed. “What do you want?”

“Oh, it's not really about what I want,” Dani said smoothly. She curled her fingers in on themselves, twisting Margaret’s emotions. Gone went any loyalty to the Order, along with any fear she might have of future retribution for her actions. Dani muted everything except the woman’s resentment, which she amplified as much as she was able. “It’s about what _you_ want. What you were promised. What you’re owed. They told you you’d be running this city, didn’t they? The leaders of the Order. They said Paris would roll over and accept this new world, with you at the top. How much of your life did you dedicate to this cause?”

It was so easy, so painfully easy, that was the worst part. It was scaring Emma and Louis a little, Dani could feel them clear as day behind her, but she ignored them and continued focusing on the guard. If Dani was going to be damned, if she was going to do this, she’d better commit and do the best job she could.

Dani sighed sympathetically, dramatically. “And is it everything you dreamed it would be, Margaret? Is it everything they _said_ it would be? They didn’t even get rid of all the superheroes like they promised they would. And now they’ve got you _babysitting_. You know you’re better than that. You know you _deserve_ better than that.”

“I do,” Margaret whispered in agreement. The other three guards in the room still hadn’t noticed she was distracted, that she was talking to herself.

“Teach them a lesson,” Dani suggested, almost coyly. “Show them the price of offering Margaret Collings the world and giving her nothing.”

“How?”

“Accept the power I give you. Take the other guards out before they know what’s happening. Let Hera and Terrapin rescue the kids. That’ll show ‘em. That’ll teach them to respect you.”

“Yes,” Margaret agreed, “yes it will.”

 

* * *

 

The second they reappeared in the panic room, Louis started for his supply cabinet. Their uncle was at his desk working, despite the lateness of the hour. He looked up when they appeared, then immediately narrowed his eyes at Dani, concerned.

“Are you okay?” her uncle asked her, and Dani knew he was reading her emotions. “You seem-”

“ _You_ ,” Dani interrupted venomously, her eyes flashing, “are the last person on the face of the _planet_ I want to be talking to right now.” Before anyone could respond, she’d whirled around and stormed out of the room. For a moment, none of them spoke.

“Did the mission fail?” Jonathan finally asked.

“No,” Emma said, as Louis began winding string tightly around a bundle of herbs. “Easiest mission yet. We didn’t even need a shield.” She hesitated. “Dani akumatized a guard.”

“Ah.” Jonathan sighed. “Adele’s first one was pretty rough on her, too.”

“Grandma made akumas?”

“Very rarely.” Jonathan went back to work as Louis got up and left.

Back in their room, Dani slammed the door shut before leaning against it heavily and exhaling deeply. “I’m sorry, Nooroo,” she whispered, “I’m so sorry, I didn’t-I couldn’t think of anything else-I never wanted to-”

“You did the right thing, Dani,” her kwami assured her. “You should sit down.” Nodding, Dani crossed the room on shaky legs and sat down on her bed. A second later, her brother entered the room. “Go away, Louis,” Dani snapped, “I just want to be left alone.”

“Be alone all you like,” Louis said calmly, as he pulled out a lighter and held it up to his tightly-wound bundle of herbs, “just so long as you're being alone while holding this for at least thirty minutes.” He handed over the now gently smouldering bundle. Rolling her eyes impatiently, Dani took it from him.

“Hold it closer to your center,” Louis said. Dani groaned in annoyance, but obeyed. Louis turned to leave, but before he reached the door Emma appeared.

“Are you okay?” she asked Dani.

“She’ll be fine,” Louis answered for her. “I just need to clear the akuma damage from her energy. It’s standard stuff.”

“Oh.” Emma looked at Dani again. “Anything I can do to help?”

“No,” Dani said.

“Are you sure?”

Dani glared at Emma. “You know, I can _tell_ there’s something you want to say, you don’t have to do that thing you always do, where you ask fifty million questions before you get to the real one.”

Emma bristled. “Fine,” she said. “You… look, I get why Uncle Jonathan wouldn’t be your favorite person right now, of all times, but that’s not the first time you’ve snapped at him.”

“So?”

“So what’s your problem with him? Because that seems like something that might be important for the rest of us to know. Do you sense something? Is he not really working as hard as he could to find Mom and Dad, does he have some kind of ulterior-”

“Of course not,” Dani said, annoyed. “Do you think I’d keep it to myself if he did?”

“Then I don’t get why you’re so antagonistic-”

“Well, of course _you_ don’t get it!” Dani interrupted angrily. “He didn’t torture _your_ kwami, did he?”

Emma opened her mouth, but for a long time no sound came out. “Oh,” she finally said, her voice faint. “Oh, I… God, I’m so sorry, I didn’t think of-”

“No, I,” Dani groaned, “that was too much, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-look. I know better than anyone that he’s sincere, that he’s really changed, that he’s doing his best to find Mom and Dad. And God, I really, desperately hope he succeeds, I do. But I can’t _like_ him, okay? It’s fine if you do, really. I get it. It was a long time ago, he was desperate, he was trying to help Grandma, I know all that. But-”

“You don’t have to explain anything,” Louis interrupted. “We get it.”

“No, you don’t,” Dani said. “It’s not just Nooroo, it’s… I don’t know if either of you can understand it.”

“So explain it,” Emma said. She said it gently, but Dani had already caught a flash of annoyance from her. Emma hated being told she couldn’t understand something more than anything.

“You just don’t know what it's like to have the powers that he abused,” Dani told her. “It's… you know how you feel when you enter a church? Even if you're not religious, there's something about that space that makes you feel quiet inside. It's sacred. You know?” Emma and Louis both nodded. “Well, being inside another person's head is that times a thousand. I don't mean feeling their emotions, I mean specifically that moment right when the butterfly lands and you're in their head. And everything that's lead them to that moment is laid out in front of you like a book you've already read a thousand times. It's so private, so achingly personal. And you have to sort through it, and find the best of them in it, and empower that. And all the while you know you can manipulate any emotions you want, but even touching them feels wrong.” Dani impatiently brushed aside a few tears.

“Here,” Louis said, grabbing a tissue box and handing it over.

“Thanks. So… yeah, so I’m not saying I regret the akuma, I know I had to do it, and I’d do it again. And I know that woman deserved it. But it still makes me sick to think about it, about how I twisted her emotions, how I empowered the worst of her for my own ends. So the thought of someone doing that to somebody _innocent_ , for no other reason than to intentionally cause fear and panic, it’s unspeakable. And he did it over and over and over again. It’s just… maybe I’ll get past it eventually, but not yet.”

Dani could read her siblings, and she knew they still didn’t entirely understand. But she also knew it didn’t matter. They understood she was hurting, and that was enough. Emma crossed the room and sat next to her, and a moment later Louis followed suit. They pressed against her, Emma’s head on her shoulder, Louis’ arm around her. As the smoke of the bundle she was still holding wafted around her, Dani inhaled and exhaled, inhaled and exhaled. Slowly, a piece of her was quieted, soothed.


	29. Ferdinand Benavente

Ferdinand Benavente woke up alone. He’d been doing that a lot over the past few months. He still hadn’t gotten used to it, though. It was difficult, to shake what one had spent the better part of the last two decades growing accustomed to.

Ferd had a morning class that day, so it wasn’t long after waking that he was on his way to the university he’d been teaching at for over forty years. It had been a good place to work, until recently. Oh, it had its fair share of petty academic politics over the years. There had been plenty of times Ferd had grown frustrated with his department, or an administrator, or a fellow professor. But it turned out there was nothing quite like a fascist takeover to put all that in perspective.

Ferd’s more interesting courses had been suspended for the semester, pending a more scrutinous review by the Order. The course he was teaching this morning was a rather generic overview of ancient history, but even so the syllabus had been scrubbed somewhat before Ferd had been allowed to start teaching it. Ferd had frequent daydreams of civil disobedience as of late, of making a stand for academic freedom, but he did his best to quell them. It was difficult-he’d often imagined, throughout his life, what he might have done if he’d lived through similar situations in history. He’d flattered himself that he would have been brave, defiant.

Ferd, of course, had never really expected to live through such a thing himself. And he certainly hadn’t expected that if he had, he’d be closely related to the people most likely to take the regime down directly. He hadn’t imagined that biting his tongue and keeping his head down might actually be the best thing he could do.

About halfway through his class, an Order officer entered the room. One by one, every head turned towards him, then quickly turned back once identifying the interruption. Order officers were nothing new on campus, of course, but they generally didn’t just appear and wait silently in the back of the room. Ferd ignored the man, but it was clear his class was unnerved. Discussion quickly came to a standstill, so after another fifteen minutes or so of lecturing, Ferd released everyone early. As they filed out, the officer made his way to the front of the room, his manner casual. As he approached, Ferd handed off a stack of short writing assignments to his teaching assistant to grade.

“Marie,” Ferd said calmly, “I had an office hour scheduled just now, do you think you could cover the beginning of it? I'll make it up to you next week, but I have the distinct impression something's about to come up.”

“Sure, professor,” Marie said, glancing nervously at the officer before leaving.

“An excellent class, Professor Benavente,” the officer said smoothly as she left. “I'm sorry I missed the beginning of it.”

“You’ll have to stop by again sometime,” Ferd said. “Can I help you?”

“I was hoping to discuss your publications. I'm a big fan.”

“Really?” Ferd asked. “That's wonderful. What did you think of my latest paper?”

“I'm afraid I haven't gotten around to reading it.”

“Ah. Let me guess. You're here to discuss my book on the role of runic magic in the rise and fall of the Borgia family.”

“Guilty,” the man said, smiling.

“Are there concerns?” Ferd asked, somewhat wearily. He thought he'd finished dealing with Order censorship after his teaching load and syllabi had been finalized, but evidently not.

“Oh, no, quite the contrary,” the officer said reassuringly. “You see-well, you’ve caught me, I'm not actually much of a history buff. The part of the book that was interesting to me-or, more accurately, to the people I work for-was the introduction. You mentioned having some skill in runic magic yourself.”

“Some,” Ferd admitted.

“Practiced it much?”

“Not really,” Ferd said. “I didn't learn I had it until I was in my forties, and by then I was well entrenched in academia, I'm afraid.”

“Never considered a career change?”

“Not at all. I'm afraid I may have given you an inflated sense of my abilities. They’re nothing compared to the magicians of the Order, I'm sure.”

“Oh, I wouldn't be so quick to assume,” the man said. “Even minor talents can be highly beneficial, if applied correctly. And the Order is very interested in seeing how abilities like yours might be applied. How does that sound? Doing important work for the Order?”

“Highly flattering,” Ferd said immediately. “Although I suppose I like to think I'm doing important work for the Order already. Educating its future leaders and so on.”

“Oh, of course,” the officer said, somewhat dismissively. “You could still teach, if that's important to you.”

“I’m seventy-two,” Ferd said. “If teaching wasn't important to me I would have retired years ago. But my course load is lighter this semester than I'd been expecting, so I'm sure it wouldn't be difficult to juggle.” He hesitated. “I hope you won't take it as an insult if I take twenty-four hours to discuss it with my husband?”

“Not at all,” the officer said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a card. “This is my number. Give me a call at any hour, when you're ready to accept. I hope you won't consider me biased, but I really do think this is the opportunity of a lifetime. You'd be a fool to decline.”

 

* * *

 

Ferd spent the next hour in his office grading papers, just in case any Order operatives were keeping an eye on him. Then he put everything away, locked up, and set out for his sister-in-law’s home. It was a long walk, but a welcome one. Ferd had always liked walking through Paris anyway, but even more so on a day like today, when there was so much he needed to think through.

The gate at the front was locked when Ferd arrived, as it always was lately. It unlocked with a loud buzz a few moments after he pressed the ringer, and Ferd quickly made his way through the courtyard, up the steps, and through the giant front door.

“Ferd!” Adele said as he entered the foyer. She was standing at the base of the stairs next to her husband. “It's good to see you. Looking for Jonathan?”

“Actually there's something I need to discuss with all three of you,” Ferd said as he crossed the open space. “I'll get Jonathan and bring him down here.” He walked past them and started to climb the staircase.

“He’s out, actually,” Adele told him. “Said he needed to clear his head and he was going to take a walk. I’m surprised he’s not back yet, he left over an hour ago.”

“Really?” Ferd frowned. “I’m starting to really worry about him, Adele.”

Gabriel raised an eyebrow. “In what way?” he asked.

“In the way that he’s my husband and I love him and he’s working himself too hard lately,” Ferd said, slightly defensively.

Adele shot her husband a look, then turned to Ferd. “It’s not an entirely unfair question,” she said gently. Ferd sighed and leaned against the banister.

“I know, I know,” he said. “And no, to answer the question you didn’t actually ask out loud, I’m not worried about any kind of… relapse, or whatever you want to call it. But Jonathan hasn’t made any real progress with the Order spells in weeks, and I know it’s getting to him. You know how he gets when he hits a wall.”

Adele nodded. “Is that why you came over?” she asked.

“No, actually,” Ferd said. “I got a very interesting job offer after my morning class today. It seems the Order is now actively recruiting Parisians with any kind of magical affinity. I thought I’d better run it by everyone before responding.”

Adele paled slightly. “I see,” she said.

“Because on the one hand, maybe it would be useful, right?” Ferd said. “To have someone on the inside of whatever they’re up to. But I don’t know what their screening process is like, maybe it would bring too much attention to Jonathan, or the rest of the family. On the other hand, maybe refusing would also-”

“I’ll run it by Alya Lahiffe,” Adele interrupted.

Ferd nodded. “Good thinking.” Adele turned around and headed upstairs. Once she’d disappeared, Ferd looked at Gabriel. “So… you’re kind of doing this sort of thing already, right? With the Citizen’s Council? How’s that been?”

Gabriel shrugged. “Keeping one’s enemies close is not nearly as advantageous as one would hope,” he replied. “Or as interesting. And I believe the Order is starting to realize just how little legitimacy the damn Council grants them in the eyes of the public. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s disbanded after Christmas.”

“Christmas? Why do you think they’ll wait until then?”

“There’s been some discussion around planning an end-of-year gala,” Gabriel replied, rolling his eyes. “I’ve been trying to convince them to make it as lavish as humanly possible. The more effort I can get them to waste, the more of their attention I can divert from their attempts to capture Adrien’s children, the better.”

Ferd nodded. “Well, good luck with that,” he said, and Gabriel nodded his thanks. Before either of them could say another word, the front door opened. Ferd looked over, hopeful, but it wasn’t Jonathan. Dani, Louis and Emma filed in, home for lunch. All three looked surprised to see Ferd, but Dani was the one who immediately narrowed her eyes suspiciously.

“What's going on?” Dani asked, clearly fully confident that the answer was not ‘nothing’.

“Jeez, Dani,” Emma said, “are pleasantries just not something you do anymore? You can’t say ‘Hi’ and ask how someone is first?”

“I can tell how he is, he’s all apprehensive,” Dani said.

“It’s fine, I don’t mind,” Ferd said. “After being married to an empath for thirteen years I’m used to their tendency to skip ahead in conversations.”

“Try being married to one for forty-six years,” Gabriel muttered, and Ferd grinned.

“Seriously, though, what’s going on?” Dani repeated.

“The Order sent a recruiter over to my class today,” Ferd told them. “They found out about my runic abilities and they're interested.”

Louis nodded. “That makes sense,” he said.

“It does?” Emma asked him.

“Sure. Most Order members don't have any magic at all. It makes sense they’d want to grab up everybody in the city with magic.”

“I thought Uncle Ferd’s abilities were… limited,” Emma said. She glanced over at him. “No offense,” she added.

Louis shrugged. “Limited’s better than nothing. It’s like… okay, say Carew’s innate magical ability is at a hundred, right? And the leaders he’s set up in all the major cities, they’re all like mid to high nineties. But that’s just a handful of people out of the entire continent. And you and me and almost everybody else, we’re all the way down at zero. Uncle Ferd’s, like, a six. Nobody who’s actually important is gonna blink twice at that, sure, but compared to zero it’s significant, right? Anyway, look at all the trouble he’s managed to give the Order already. Warding Aunt Alya’s phone so she can’t be traced, touching up the protections for her resistance radio station. A little can go a long way if-”

Before he could finish the thought, the door opened once more and Jonathan walked through. He seemed surprised to see the foyer so crowded, and his eyes fixed on Ferd as Ferd crossed to him. “What’s wrong?” he asked immediately, and behind him Emma snorted.

“Maybe nothing,” Ferd told him. “The Order sent a recruiter over to my class this morning with a job offer, that’s all. Because of the runic affinity.”

“Oh.” Jonathan frowned, then glanced behind Ferd at Adele, who was making her way down the staircase to join her husband. He looked back at Ferd. “Did you accept?”

“Oh, sure,” Ferd said. “Wept with gratitude for the opportunity and everything. I mean, who wouldn’t jump at the chance to be a part of conquering Europe? When has that plan ever _not_ worked out for someone?”

Jonathan raised an eyebrow. “You know I love it when you get all Snarky Historian, ma moitié, but I sincerely hope you didn’t say that to his face.”

“No, no,” Ferd reassured him, “I was perfectly friendly. I said I needed to talk it over with you before formally accepting, that’s all.”

“Hmm. How optional do you think the offer was?”

Ferd shrugged. “I don’t think I’m going to get kidnapped and locked in a room until I accept, like the last time I got a job offer like this, but ‘optional’ is probably a stretch. He was vague, but the way things have been going lately at the university… if I had to guess, I’d say I’d suddenly find it much more difficult to get my course syllabi approved. The ones that have been might be revoked. They might just push me into retirement outright. That kind of thing.” Ferd noticed the looks he was getting from the three teens. “What?”

“Has anyone in this fucking family _not_ been kidnapped?” Dani asked, incredulous.

“Language, Danielle,” Adele said, but her heart wasn't in it.

“I would really like to hear the answer to that question, actually,” Emma said.

“Your grandfather’s never been kidnapped,” Adele said. She glanced at her husband. “Right?”

“I suppose it depends on how liberally one defines ‘kidnapped’,” Gabriel replied.

“Oh, getting captured in the middle of rescuing Jonathan doesn’t count,” Adele said dismissively.

“What about that bank robbery that-”

“Being a hostage is completely different,” Adele interrupted.

Jonathan snapped his fingers. “What about that teleportation trap that warlock set up in ‘98, remember? Gabriel was stuck in that thing for like five hours before I found a book and talked him through escaping. That counts, right?”

“Well, maybe,” Adele said, somewhat begrudgingly.

“Not that I don’t love watching you three take a wrong turn down memory lane,” Ferd said, “but if we could get back to my thing, that would be great, I have an afternoon class starting in forty minutes and it’s a bit of a walk back.”

“Right. Sorry,” Adele said. “Alya was already aware of the Order’s recruiting efforts, she said she’s got a couple of people who’ve been approached already. She wouldn’t say no to one more, of course, but she’s not desperately in need of more people on the inside. It’s really just a question of whether we think it’s too risky or not.”

“Which it is,” Gabriel said. “The Order must have some kind of vetting process, and the last thing this family needs is additional scrutiny.”

“Agreed,” Jonathan said. “It’s not worth the risk.” Ferd wasn’t sure what was more shocking, that Jonathan was admitting out loud to agreeing with Gabriel Agreste on something, or that Gabriel didn’t look the least bit bothered by it. Ferd probably would have found this more touching if the thing they were agreeing on wasn’t ‘Ferd should stay out of danger’.

“I’m currently taking the fewest risks out of anybody in this room,” Ferd said, trying not to sound defensive. “If I have an opportunity to be more useful, shouldn’t I take it?”

“It’s not that straightforward,” Jonathan said. “I know how you feel, but you taking risks jeopardizes the work I’m doing, too. Not to mention the danger it might put the kids in. And it doesn’t sound like there’s that much to gain, if the reporter already has other informants in similar positions.” Jonathan reached over, putting a hand on his husband’s arm. “I’m sorry.”

Ferd sighed. “It’s fine. You’re right, of course you’re right. I’ll turn it down.” Ferd glanced at his watch. “I’d better get going. Might as well do my job for however long I still have it.” Before leaving, he hugged Jonathan goodbye. “You coming home tonight?” Ferd asked softly.

Jonathan nodded. “Of course,” he promised.

 

* * *

 

Ferd was about to leave for the day, his office hours come and gone without a single student dropping in, when there was a knock at his open door and Danielle Agreste poked her head in. “Uncle Ferd?”

“Dani! What are you doing here? Not that I’m not happy to see you, but-”

“Oh, um, I just-I wanted to ask you something, but not around everyone else, so I thought I’d stop by here after school.” She entered his office, closing the door behind her. “Is that okay?”

“Sure. What is it?”

“What, um,” Dani took a deep breath and finished her question in a rush, “what was being akumatized like?”

Ferd nodded slowly. “Ah. I see.” He considered the question. “I don't remember most of it, actually.”

“Because of how long ago it was, or because your memory got wiped?” Dani asked.

“The latter. Jonathan wiped everyone's memories. He thought it would be easier that way.”

“Was it?”

Ferd shrugged. “It depends on who you ask. I go back and forth on it myself. I went to more than a few support group meetings, back in the day, and for every person who was grateful for it, there was another who resented it, who felt like it was just one more violation. It was… the more you hear from other akuma victims, the more you realize just how individual an experience it was. I don't know if my account can give you what you're looking for.”

Dani shrugged. “I don't know what I'm looking for. I just… if I'm going to be akumatizing people, I want to look it in the eye, that's all. But if I ask Aunt Alya or Uncle Nino about it they’ll just worry about me and pretend it was nothing. It’s weird, you know, talking to people when you can tell how they really feel, how much you’re actually upsetting them, no matter how good they are at hiding it. It gets exhausting sometimes. But you… I know we haven’t talked a lot or anything, but you’re kind of relaxing to be around. You seem like you’d be a good person to talk to about stuff.”

Ferd grinned. “Yeah, I get that a lot from empaths,” he said.

Dani looked at him, surprised. “Grandma, too?”

“Mm hmm.” Ferd took a few moments to gather his thoughts. “I was here,” he finally started. “Well, not _here_ , I didn’t have my own office yet, but I was working here, at the university. I was a lecturer back then, going for a promotion. I had a colleague. We never really got along. Fundamental differences of opinion on virtually every subject that ever came up.  Anyway, he went behind my back, spoke to some of the committee members, tried to sabotage my promotion. I was pretty angry when I found out. I stormed back to my office, and the next thing I knew there was this voice in my head. It felt like it was everywhere at once, and it was saying everything I was feeling. I wasn't the first to be akumatized, so on some level I did realize what was happening, but I just… I couldn't care. I couldn't feel anything except that anger, that indignation. So I accepted his offer, and…” Ferd shrugged. “The next thing I knew, I was in a completely different part of the campus, totally disoriented.”

“Was it awful?” Dani asked, her voice almost a whisper.

Ferd shrugged. “I’d be lying if I said it was nothing,” he admitted. “It took a while to get past. And it took a while for the people around me to get past it, too. But we all did, eventually.” Ferd looked at Dani. “Your parents were really helpful on that front, actually.”

“Really?” Dani asked, surprised.

“Yeah. They’re the first thing I remember, after snapping out of it. They were both there, both doing their best to reassure me. They were really great every time. Not just with me, with every one of us. They never blamed any of us, they always stuck around to make sure we were okay if they could. The stigma would have been a lot worse if it hadn't been for their attitude, the way they treated us.”

Dani blinked back a few tears. “Yeah?”

Ferd nodded. “Even back then, even for superheroes, they were special.”

Dani sighed. “Yeah, they were. Are.” She picked at the dirt under one of her nails suddenly, not meeting her uncle’s gaze.

“We’re going to get them back,” Ferd said reassuringly.

Dani nodded, still not looking up. “Yeah. Yeah, we will,” she agreed. “And when we do, they’re going to find out their daughter’s been making akumas in their absence. The thing they originally became superheroes to fight.” She kept picking at her nail.

“They are,” Ferd said. “And you’re right, it might take some getting used to the idea. But they’ll understand. They’ll be proud of every single thing you’ve done since they disappeared.”

After a moment, Dani nodded. “Thanks.”

 

* * *

 

It wouldn’t have been the first night since the occupation began, that Jonathan said he’d be home and then wasn’t. So when curfew rolled around with no sign of him, Ferd tried not to take it personally. He simply settled down on his couch and tried to distract himself from worrying by reading a book. It was an effective tactic, so Ferd was somewhat startled when he heard the door open about fifteen minutes later.

“Sorry I’m late,” Jonathan called to him as he removed his coat and scarf.

“Out past curfew?” Ferd asked. “I thought this family wasn’t taking any unnecessary risks.”

“We’re not,” Jonathan said, entering the room, “but I had a promise to keep. How was the rest of your day?”

“Well, I called the recruiter back,” Ferd said. “I told him we talked about it and decided I was past the point in my life where it makes sense to be working two jobs.”

Jonathan sat down next to his husband. “And?”

“And he suggested that maybe I was past the point in my life where it makes sense to be working one job.” Ferd let out a heavy sigh. “So odds are good I’m retiring in a month.”

“I’m sorry,” Jonathan said, “that sucks.”

“Yeah,” Ferd said dryly, “it’s the worst thing that’s happened to anyone in this city since Occupation Day.”

Jonathan put an arm around Ferd’s shoulders and pulled him close. “You’re still allowed to be upset, you know.”

“It’s fine,” Ferd insisted, leaning against Jonathan. “I’m sure I’ll find something to do to fill up all my free time. Like gardening. Or birdwatching. Or treason. It’ll be fun.” He paused. “Speaking of treason…”

“What?”

“Remember that book you insisted I made up?” Ferd asked.

“I didn’t say you _made it up_ ,” Jonathan said, “I said the spell wasn’t druidic.”

“Yeah, well, I finally found it.”

“Seriously?” In response, Ferd got up, crossed the room to his bag, rummaged through it for a few moments, and pulled a book out, which he then dropped triumphantly on the table in front of Jonathan. Jonathan leaned over and read the cover.

“You found a druidic spell similar to the spells the Order cast in… a book on a fifteenth century schism in the Catholic Church?

“Huh?” Ferd looked down. “Oh, no. I switched the dust jackets. I didn’t want anyone to realize the book was missing. And then I snuck out the back without checking it out so, you know, I’m going to Library Hell now.”

“You say that like you’re joking,” Jonathan said, opening the book, “but you actually feel guilty.”

“Libraries are very important to me,” Ferd said defensively. “Removing a book from one without checking it out first goes against everything I hold sacred. Flip to Chapter Eight.”

Jonathan picked the book up, flipped through, and read silently for a few minutes, his eyes slowly widening. “Well?” Ferd finally said. “Was I right or was I right?”

“Well, first of all,” Jonathan said, “this spell isn’t druidic.”

“What?” Ferd walked around the table and sat down again, looking at the page Jonathan was reading. “Is that or is that not an account of a spell cast by a celtic mystic in Gaul in the second century BC?”

“Look, it’s an easy mistake to make, but just because a druid cast the spell doesn’t mean the spell _itself_ is druidic. This says she was hired by a Roman general, and _he_ got the spell on the Silk Road. The spell itself is vedic, which as a magical discipline is about as far from druidic as-”

“Oh my God, just admit I was right.”

Jonathan grinned. “Never.” He went back to reading the account, and slowly a kind of light came into his eyes that Ferd hadn’t seen there for what felt like a very long time, a light he hadn’t realized he’d missed so much.

“But… I was right that this is useful, though? This is something you can use? This will help?”

Jonathan nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, this is really good, this is going to help a lot.”  He kept reading for a few minutes, then looked at Ferd. “You know, you're a lot less smug about this than I would have expected, it's kind of worrying. Fine, I admit it, you were right. Happy?” Ferd nodded but didn't say anything, and Jonathan narrowed his eyes. “Seriously, what's bothering you? I know I haven't been very present lately, and I'm sorry about that but this is-”

“It's not that,” Ferd said. “I'm not worried about us.”

“Then what?”

“You,” Ferd took a breath, “you know this is enough, right? Like, everything you're doing, even if you don't get as far as you hope. Everything you've already done is enough.”

“Enough for what?”

“You know… enough to count as one of the good guys.”

Jonathan was silent for a moment, and he leaned back heavily into the couch cushions. “Jesus, Ferd,” he finally said.

“Look, I know that you’re the kind of person who throws himself into these research projects anyway, and I know the stakes are higher than ever. But I just, I can’t shake the feeling that there’s more to it, to how obsessed you’ve been. That maybe you’ve been thinking of this as… I don’t know, redemption.”

Jonathan considered this. “Maybe,” he admitted. “Is that a bad thing?”

“No,” Ferd said. “But… if what you’re doing doesn’t work, if it’s too much, it’s still enough that you gave it your best.”

Jonathan scoffed. “For who?” he asked. “Trust me, ‘giving my best’ has not changed anyone’s opinion of me so far. And honestly, I get that. It’s fine, I can live with it. I’ve lived with it for this long. You don’t need to worry about it, okay?”

“You can live with it?” Ferd asked. “With doing all this work and nothing being different at the end of it? Because in stories it always seems like the villain seeking redemption winds up having to die for the heroes in the eleventh hour for everyone to go, ‘Oh, he was good in the end.’ That’s the cliche, isn’t it?”

Jonathan looked at Ferd incredulously. “ _That’s_ what you’ve been worrying-”

“And I know these things are more nuanced in real life, I probably know that better than anyone, but I swear to God, Jonathan, if you get it in your head to earn redemption through some idiotic blaze of self-sacrifice, I will never forgive you for it.”

“Oh, Ferd.” Jonathan pulled Ferd into a fierce hug. “You know I’m way too much of a selfish bastard to do anything like that.”

Ferd let out a shaky breath. “Promise?”

Jonathan kissed Ferd’s temple. “I promise.”


	30. Emma

“Mermaids?” Emma asked.

“Not as far as I know,” her uncle replied.

“Dragons?”

“Never seen one personally, but yes.”

“Zombies?”

“Not any kind you need to worry about.”

Emma raised an eyebrow. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“There are certain branches of magic, mostly originating from the Caribbean, that can pull off reanimating dead corpses rather elegantly. But you're not going to die from a bite, or turn into one yourself. Fighting a zombie is like fighting a sick, disoriented person whose head and limbs are over-inclined to drop off. You're more likely to get seriously hurt fighting a house cat.” Not looking up, Jonathan handed Emma the sheet of paper he'd been writing on. “Check that.” He began working on a fresh sheet as Emma started plugging numbers into her calculator.

“Werewolves?”

“Nope.”

“Are they impossible, or have you just never heard of them?”

“I'd never say anything was _impossible_ , after everything I've seen,” Jonathan said, “but logistically it’d be a nightmare.” He wrote a few more numbers down, then paused. “Well…” he said slowly, “shapeshifting spells are a thing, sure. I suppose it wouldn't be _too_ hard to link one to the phases of the moon. It'd be very patchwork, but in theory… no, but making it contagious wouldn't work, you'd need an external power source every time a new person was cursed, it would count as a re-casting whenever a new person was bitten. Being able to pass it on indefinitely would violate the second law of thermodynamics.” He went back to working, then stopped again a minute later. “I mean, I _guess_ it could work if each new werewolf was powering the transfer with their own energy, but you'd have to limit the pool of werewolves to people who generate enough magical energy of their own to-”

“Jonathan, have you seen-oh, there you are, Emma,” Emma’s grandmother said, poking her head in. “What are you doing in here?”

“Checking math,” Emma said. “And Uncle Jonathan’s teaching me how to make werewolves.”

Adele’s eyebrows shot up as she looked at her brother. “You're _what_?”

“I am not… okay, maybe I was a little,” Jonathan admitted. “Emma was grilling me on what is and isn't real, instead of double-checking my math like she said she would.”

“I can do both. Is that a one or a seven?”

Jonathan looked at where Emma was pointing. “Seven.” He looked back at Adele. “Look, now that I actually have an account of someone casting something like the Order’s spells, I can figure out how these parameters correspond to real-world locations. But backing out the latitude and longitude ranges is a little involved, so I'd feel more comfortable with a second set of eyes checking my work, okay? Actually I wouldn't say no to a third set, either, if you want a go.”

Adele shuddered. “Pass.”

“It's not that hard, Grandma, we’re just plugging these four-dimensional vectors into a couple of multivariate polynomials and then converting from polar to Cartesian-”

“Your brother needs you,” Adele interrupted. She glanced at the papers on Jonathan’s desk and made a face. “And I need to be as far away from whatever you're doing as possible, before I get roped into it.”

 

* * *

 

“What's up?” Emma asked, entering the study her brother had taken over. Louis and Dani looked up from the couch as Emma took three steps into the room before stopping. “What are you doing with Mom’s Miraculous?”

“Wayzz has been teaching me this advanced technique,” Louis explained. “Actually, it’s… it’s really advanced. Guardians don’t usually even attempt it until they’ve been doing trance states for a few years. But we thought it might be helpful, and we don’t have a few years. So I wanted to test myself, make sure it’s accurate, and I figured you’d be good for that. Don’t you think?”

Emma sat down across from her siblings and looked at the earrings lying on the small coffee table in front of her. “You haven’t said what it is yet,” she pointed out, and Louis’ face turned slightly pink.

“Right. Sorry,” he said. “I’m just… nervous. Um. It’s basically a way to see anything the Miraculous has borne witness to while active.”

Emma’s jaw dropped slightly. “ _Anything_?” she asked. “You could… you could spy on any moment in Mom’s life since she was, what, our age? Since she got those?”

“Up through last August, anyway,” Louis muttered. “But yes, that’s the idea. But because I’m not experienced with trance states yet, there’s a risk that I just wind up imagining what I expect to see. Since you know way more about Ladybug history than I do, I thought you could give me a test. Ask me something I don’t know, some question about… I don’t know, an old akuma attack or something like that, from before we were born. And I’ll try to see what happened. If I get it right I’ll know we can trust anything else I see, too.” He paused. “Like the night Mom and Dad got taken.”

Emma nodded silently, then thought for a few minutes. “Do you… do you know how they defeated the Dark Cupid akuma?” Louis shook his head, then reached forward and gently scooped up the Ladybug Miraculous. He folded his legs under himself, took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

Five minutes later, Emma looked at Dani. “Did Louis say how long-”

“Shhhhhh,” Louis interrupted, his eyes still closed.

“Oh. Sorry, I didn’t-”

“Stop. Talking.” Dani and Emma exchanged an eyeroll, then did their best to wait patiently. They were both starting to nod off when Louis opened his eyes about half an hour later.

“Did it work?” Emma asked.

“First of all,” Louis said, “gross, you did that on purpose.”

“She did what on purpose?” Dani asked.

“Picked an incident where Mom and Dad kissed,” Louis told Dani, who snorted.

Emma grinned. “Traumatized?” she asked.

“I’m more traumatized from knowing exactly how good Dad looks in black lipstick. Anyway. The akuma was in a brooch, Dad tossed it to Mom, Mom stepped on it and broke it, then cleansed the akuma inside. Is that right?”

Emma nodded. “Yeah, that’s right. Are you going to look at when they got taken now?”

Louis glanced down at the earrings resting in his upturned palm. “Um… no, I think you’d better give me a few more tests first, just in case. I want to be absolutely sure we can trust this technique.”

Dani reached for Louis’ free hand and squeezed it comfortingly. “You’re doing really well,” she said, and Emma wondered how much insecurity Louis was hiding. She wondered if Dani was just always going to be closer now to the two of them than Emma and Louis were to each other. Dani glanced up at her, concerned, and Emma mentally shook her thoughts off.

“Another test sounds fun,” Emma said. “How much do you know about the Reflekta incident? If you liked seeing what Dad looks like in black lipstick, you’ll _love_ seeing him in heels.”

 

* * *

 

Halfway through breakfast the next morning, Dani suddenly screamed. Emma jumped in her seat, startled, then got up and rushed to her sister’s side. Dani was grabbing her head now, still making incoherent noises, breathing heavily, and tears were streaming down her face.

“Louis. Louis, what’s wrong with her, what is it?” Emma asked, trying to suppress her rising panic.

“I… I don’t know,” he said, his eyes wide with horror. “I can’t see any spells on her.”

“What? Louis, this _has_ to be magic, it-”

“Get your sister out of the city,” Emma’s grandfather interrupted. Startled, Emma looked over at the other side of the table. Her grandparents’ faces were both ashen, her grandmother looked sick, and her grandfather had a decisive look on his face.

“Do you know what-”

“ _Now_ , Emma,” her grandfather snapped. Nodding, Emma transformed as quickly as she could. A second later, she’d grabbed her sister’s shoulder and whisked them both to a bedroom of their grandmother’s country manor.

“Are… are you okay?” Emma asked. Dani straightened slowly, then nodded.

“Yeah,” she said, brushing her hand under her eyes, wiping tears away. “Yeah, I’m fine now.”

“What the hell just happened?”

“I have no idea. It was just… sudden, excruciating pain. I’ve never felt anything like it.” She looked around. “What are we doing here?”

“Grandfather told me to get you out of the city. I guess he knows what’s going on somehow.”

“Oh.” Dani sat down on the bed. “I guess you’d better get back there and find out what it is, then.”

“Right.” Emma hesitated. “Are… are you going to be okay here alone?”

Dani nodded. “Yeah, I’ll be fine. I, uh, think I’ll lie down a bit, actually. Call me and let me know what’s up, okay?”

“Sure.” Emma squeezed her sister’s shoulder before teleporting back to the kitchen in Paris. Her grandmother still looked slightly ill, holding her head in one hand and a cup of tea in the other, Louis and Gabriel on either side of her. All three looked up as Emma reappeared.

“How’s your sister?” Adele asked immediately.

“Fine now, she said,” Emma told them. “What’s going on?” Before Adele could answer, Uncle Jonathan walked into the kitchen.

“Where do you guys keep the aspirin?” he asked. “I’ve got this killer migraine all of a sudden, and-”

“Aspirin won’t help,” Adele told him, sounding miserable. “There’s tea, though, or coffee.”

Jonathan frowned. “Why won’t aspirin help?” He looked at the four of them and narrowed his eyes. “What’s going on?” Adele sighed.

“Do you remember that artifact the Louvre had on loan from the British Museum in ‘97?” she asked him. “It was… Māori, right?” she asked, looking at Gabriel. He nodded.

Jonathan raised an eyebrow. “That can’t be it,” he said. “Sure, my head hurts, but I’m not trying to claw my eyes out of my face like you practically were back then.”

“We’re both much weaker empaths than I was back then,” she said. “Dani, on the other hand, well. Emma got her out of the city right away, but before that… trust me, that’s what this is.”

“What are you talking about?” Emma asked. “I told Dani I’d find out what was going on and tell her as soon as I could. Is she going to be okay?”

“There’s nothing wrong with Dani,” Adele reassured her granddaughter. “This is something we’ve seen before. Back a few centuries ago, there was this artifact in New Zealand, the people of some small island had used it to identify psychics, to choose their next… shaman? Is that the right word? I can’t remember. Anyway, the thing eventually wound up on display in London, where it sat harmlessly until they loaned it to the Louvre about a year and a half into our superhero career. The curator decided it would be fun to activate, and wouldn’t you know it, whatever it is that it does to identify psychics does _not_ agree with empaths.”

“Oh,” Emma said. “Well… okay, that’s good, you’ve dealt with it before, you know how to defeat it.”

“Defeat it?” Jonathan asked, leaning against the doorway. “We politely asked them to turn it off. They spent like a week publicly apologizing for the trouble. Something tells me that the people who turned it on this time aren’t going to be quite as accommodating.”

Emma blinked. “Wow,” she said lightly, “I cannot imagine how _relaxing_ it must have been to be a superhero in a city run by people who actually want to _help_ you, instead of people who are actively trying to kill you.”

“Yeah,” Louis agreed. “Sounds like a vacation or something.”

Adele sighed. “Yes, I’m certainly starting to appreciate how easy Gabriel and I had it back then.” She looked at her husband. “What are we going to do?” she asked. “It could be anywhere in the city, and-”

“It’s gotta be back in the Louvre,” Jonathan interrupted. “The pyramid was amplifying its signal. If it were anywhere else it would only have a radius of a couple of blocks.”

“Emma and I can check it out,” Louis said. “I bet if I get close enough I’ll be able to see whatever magic field it’s generating. And then once we know exactly where it is, Emma can get us in and we’ll shut it off and take it so they can’t turn it back on.”

“They must have _some_ defenses around it,” Emma said. “But I guess step one is scoping it out either way.”

Adele nodded, then sighed. “This isn’t good,” she muttered. She slumped down, burying her head in her crossed arms on the table.

“It’ll be fine, Grandma,” Louis said. “I know we usually need Dani to take care of teleportation blocks, but I think Emma and I can handle-”

“This is the tip of an iceberg,” his grandfather interrupted, as he put an arm around his wife’s shoulders. “Perhaps dealing with this will not be difficult, but it signals more unseen problems to come. The Order is finally doing its homework. They’re finally doing actual research, instead of just attacking you children with their own brand of magic. They’ve figured out that your powers and the powers of Butterfly and Paon are one and the same.” He looked over at Jonathan. “Can you think of anything else the Order might have learned from researching that time? Any other weaknesses the children might now have?”

Jonathan shook his head. “Not off the top of my head. That was one of the few incidents that actually made it into the paper accurately back then. But… we should go through everything, just to make sure.” He crossed to the table, grabbed an unused mug, and poured himself a cup of coffee. “Now, I guess, since I’m pretty sure I won’t be able to get any real work done until you kids take care of this headache.” He sat down across from Adele.

Emma turned to Louis. “Guess we’d better get going, then.” Nodding, Louis got up and joined her.

“That first supernatural incident, with the amulet, that one messed with your powers,” Jonathan said to Gabriel, as Emma and Louis started to leave. “Did that part ever make it into the papers?”

Gabriel shook his head. “No. There were no witnesses, and we managed to keep the official account…” Emma didn’t hear the rest. It was tempting to linger, to listen to the three of them go through the history none of them ever seemed to want to discuss with the triplets, but Emma and Louis had a job to do.

 

* * *

 

The walk to the Louvre was long, but pleasant. The route lay mainly along the Seine, and Emma and Louis took it mostly in silence.

“Did you get a look at Mom and Dad disappearing?” Emma asked, after about twenty minutes of walking.

“Yeah,” Louis said. “I’m gonna look again, though. It cuts out the second they actually disappear, when their Miraculouses go dormant. And it happens so fast, it’s over in a second. It’s hard to get a good look.”

“So you didn’t get anything out of it yet?”

“I… I think they were pulled south. Or maybe southwest.” He sighed. “I know that's not exactly specific enough to be _helpful_ -”

“Sure it is,” Emma said. “Uncle Jonathan’s working on narrowing down a range of possible locations. Knowing they’re south of Paris could cut the possible area in half, maybe more. Every piece of information helps.”

“Sure,” Louis said. He said nothing more, and Emma tried to think of something else to fill the silence.

“Do you ever think about…” Emma started, then trailed off.

“Think about?” Louis asked.

“Well… Grandma and Grandfather, at the start. Back in the nineties. I'm sure it must have seemed crazy at the time but overall they had a pretty easy beginning, right? They were adults, they didn't have any serious villains. Then Mom and Dad, they had it way harder. They were teenagers, they had to fight like three magical villains a week. But compared to us… we’re even younger than they were, our powers aren't as strong, and we're fighting an entire occupation run by people that, unlike Hawkmoth, are actively trying to kill us. They had all of Paris behind them, and we… I mean, we do in spirit I guess, but seeing as how helping us is a crime punishable by death there aren’t a ton of people lining up to do it. Anyway, it all just makes me wonder…”

“What?”

“How fucked are our kids?”

Louis’ had a split second of shock, of wondering if he’d heard his sister correctly, and then he burst out laughing. Emma grinned a moment later. “I’m serious!” she said, laughing a little herself. “If you look at how things have been escalating from generation to generation, I mean, jeez, our kids are just going to be straight-up fixing the apocalypse at thirteen, aren’t they?”

 

* * *

 

“Can you see it? The field?” Emma asked in a near whisper as they entered the pyramid that served as entrance to the Louvre.

Louis nodded, looking around. “Yeah, it's way more concentrated here.” His gaze wandered up, to the apex, and then down. “It’s a few floors down, right under the point. We can come back tonight, after closing, when everyone else is gone.”

“What about defenses?”

“The usual. Anti-teleportation field. I think I can rig something up to deal with it.”

“That’s it?”

Louis shrugged. “They’ve never seen us take one down without a Champion. I guess they think that’s enough.” Emma frowned. “What?”

“It’s just… after this they’ll know more about what we can do. They’ll know we can handle this kind of thing without Dani.” Emma bit her lip. “Every time the Order learns more about our abilities, it’s another advantage lost. We both remember what happened when they figured out my invisibility.”

“Yeah,” Louis agreed. “But I don’t think we have a choice here, Emma.”

“I know,” Emma sighed. “I just don’t know how many more advantages we have left to lose.”


	31. Louis

August 28, 2031

 

Louis’ parents were both sitting at the kitchen table, looking completely dejected. The only noise came from the small television set on the countertop, which was currently playing a news report about Ladybug and Chat Noir’s latest triumph, its overall tone downright jubilant.

“Could someone _please_ shut that thing off?” Marinette asked, as she put a hand to her forehead and began to massage her temples.

“Of course, dear,” Sabine said, quickly crossing the kitchen and hitting the OFF button. She and Tom were busy cleaning up, and the house was otherwise empty save for the three infants currently napping in their rockers. Adrien leaned over and gave Dani’s a slight push, making it swing gently. Marinette watched silently, her eyes fixed on the back and forth of it, so she didn't notice what her mother was up to until the plate was dropped right in front of her. Marinette groaned.

“Mom, please, I am not in the mood for cake of all things.”

“Your father and I worked very hard on that cake-”

“I know! I feel terrible, you went to all that trouble for nothing-”

“It's not for nothing if you eat a slice, dear,” Sabine interrupted, shoving a fork into her daughter's hand before patting her on the head and returning to the dishes. Sighing, Marinette looked at Adrien.

“She’s got a point,” Adrien said.

“You eat it, then,” Marinette said, pushing the plate across the table. But Adrien just stared at it silently before looking back at his wife. “We said we wouldn’t miss anything,” Marinette said. “We didn't even make it a year.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Were we just completely delusional?”

“Guess so.” Adrien took his glasses off and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Maybe we should reconsider semi-retirement.”

“No.”

“This is going to happen again, Marinette. This isn't a fluke.”

“I know.”

“You know the more active we are, the more likely these kinds of incidents get.”

“I know that, too,” Marinette snapped. She groaned. “I'm sorry, I'm not mad at you.” Adrien leaned over and took her hand, squeezing it. “We went over all this before they were born. Maybe we were lying to ourselves about how easy this would be, but none of the facts are different.” She hesitated, glancing at Adrien almost nervously. “Your parents tried retirement,” she said softly, “and we both know how well that worked out.”

“We wouldn't-”

“I know, I know. But… it doesn't matter how much better we handle it than they did. If we’re retired when the next Hawkmoth comes along, we both know what's going to happen.” Marinette looked over at their sleeping children. “One or more of our kids is going to come home and find a black box waiting for them in their bedroom. As long as we stay active, that doesn't happen.”

“We can't keep them away from it forever.”

“We can keep them away from it until they’re eighteen, at least. I don't want to keep it from them forever, I just… we were so _young_ , Adrien. It didn't feel like it at the time but now, looking at the three of them, it just seems so-”

Marinette was cut off as Emma started fussing. She quickly went over and scooped her daughter up, quieting her before she could wake her siblings up. “Shh, shh,” Marinette murmured, holding Emma close to her chest and bouncing gently on the balls of her feet. She looked back at Adrien as their daughter fell back asleep in her arms. “Look, I’m glad I got the Ladybug Miraculous. It's one of the best things that's ever happened to me. It brought us together. And, all things considered, I guess I'm even glad I got it when I did. But I still want better for them. Is that wrong?”

Adrien shook his head. “No, you're completely right. We’ll stay active. We’ll just have to lean a bit more on our parents to cover for us from now on, that's all.”

“Happy to help however we can, kids!” Tom called over cheerfully from the sink.

“Thanks, Dad,” Marinette said, a smile finally breaking through her somber expression. She looked back at the table. “Okay,” she said, with a feigned begrudgingness, “I guess I could stand to eat _one_ piece of cake.”

As his mother gently lay Emma back down, as the four adults finally relaxed somewhat and allowed themselves to be happy, Louis let go of the vision.

 

June 14, 2040

 

Louis found that when he didn't make an active effort to direct himself towards a specific memory, he tended to wind up inside of ones that concerned him personally.

“Gabriel? Adele?” Marinette shouted, her voice echoing in the mansion’s open foyer, as her three children ran past her. “Kids, wait in here until I find-”

“Grandma, Grandma, Grandma!” the kids choruses as Adele appeared. They swarmed her immediately, and she smiled and hugged all three at once.

“What are you three doing here? Did a little bird tell you your grandmother missed you?” The three of them giggled as their mother caught up, three duffel bags in tow, then all ran off in different directions as she began speaking.

“I tried calling ahead,” Marinette said apologetically, “but there was no answer. Adrien and I had a last minute business trip come up, so-Danielle put that vase _down_ or so help me God-so if it's not too much trouble-”

“Of course not,” Adele interrupted cheerfully. “Gabriel’s out of town on business himself until tomorrow evening, but I’m sure the four of us will have plenty of fun in the meantime. Isn't that right, kids?” Adele asked, her voice raised. From various corners of the room her grandchildren echoed their agreement

“Kids, get over here,” Marinette said. They ran back, and Marinette physically turned them all to face her and Adele. “Okay,” she said, leaning down to their level, her voice firm, “promise Grandma Adele _right now_ that you're going to be on your best behavior while Dad and I are on our business trip, okay?”

“Promise,” all three of them said immediately. Adele beamed down at them.

“Kids, why don't you bring your suitcases up to your room, okay?” she suggested. “And once you've unpacked we can all decide what to do for the rest of the day.”

“Race you,” Dani said, grabbing her bag and starting to run before she'd finished issuing the challenge. Her siblings followed suit as they shouted about the unfairness of this, and soon all three were gone.

Up until now Louis had his own memories of this afternoon, and they mostly matched what he'd seen. But now he was looking via the Ladybug Miraculous, so instead of following his younger self he stayed downstairs.

The second the kids were out of sight, Adele's expression changed. It was an expression Louis had now grown used to seeing on his grandmother, although he'd never seen it himself until the occupation.

“Louis knows you're not going on a business trip,” Adele told Marinette, who sighed.

“I know,” she said. “But he hasn't brought it up in years, and apart from the occasional eye roll he keeps it to himself. I think that's the best we can hope for until they're all old enough to hear everything.”

Adele nodded. “Where are you going?”

“Canberra.”

“How dangerous?”

“Oh, we’ll be fine,” Marinette said confidently. “Honestly, I'm kind of looking forward to it. It's been awhile since Adrien and I were-”

Louis let go of the vision.

 

December 10th, 2043

 

“Louis did _what_?”

“He broke into the main office-”

“It's not breaking in if you have keys,” Louis interrupted indignantly.

“ _Quiet_ ,” his mother snapped.

“No, he's right, I should begin earlier,” Principal Bernard said dryly. “Your son stole the janitor’s keys-”

“Borrowed,” Louis muttered.

“-made himself a spare set, then let himself into the main office, where he replaced the folder containing the winter exams with a folder containing copies of a guide to self-care and good mental health practices for developing teenage minds.”

Louis’ parents, seated on either side of him, both looked at him silently and he shrank under their gaze. After a moment they looked back at his principal.

“Pamela, I am _so_ sorry about this,” Adrien said.

“I know Louis has a good heart,” Principal Bernard said. “He always has very admirable motives whenever he does something like this. But sometimes,” she raised an eyebrow at Louis, “it seems his heart runs ahead of his brain.” Sighing, the principal looked back at Adrien and Marinette. “Luckily for Louis, we can tell he didn't open the envelope containing the actual tests. Otherwise this would be a cheating case, and we’d be discussing some very severe consequences. However, breaking into the main office is still a serious matter and I'm afraid some kind of example must be made. I think a week’s suspension is appropriate.”

Marinette closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Of course,” she finally said. “That’s very understanding of you.” She opened her eyes and looked at her son. “Where are the keys?”

“Oh, we confiscated those right away,” Principal Bernard said confidently. Louis’ parents both looked at her skeptically.

“What, both sets?” Adrien asked.

Principal Bernard blinked. “I'm sorry, both?”

Louis’ parents turned back to him. “Hand over the second set, buddy,” Adrien said. Sighing, Louis reached for his bag on the floor, dug through its many side pockets, pulled out a set of keys and dropped them on his principal’s desk.

“Is there a third set we should know about?” Marinette asked.

“What? No.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Yes! Jeez-”

“Louis Qiang Agreste if I _ever_ , in the course of your natural life, ever find out that you made a third set of these keys you will be in more trouble than you can possibly imagine, do you understand me?” Louis nodded, but before he could say anything the bell rang. Apologizing again to the principal, Louis’ parents ushered him out of the office and into the school’s hallway.

“Go wait for me in the car, Louis, I want to talk to your father before his next class begins. We can discuss exactly how grounded you are on the drive home.” Louis looked like he wanted to protest for a second, but then sighed in defeat and headed for the exit. Once he was gone Marinette let out a long, aggravated groan. “These kids are going to be the death of us, Adrien, I swear,” she said. “I guess I should at least be grateful he didn’t drag Dani into it this time.” She paused. “Oh, God, I hope he didn’t drag Dani into it.” Marinette looked up at her husband. “Where is all this coming from?”

“I blame your genetics,” Adrien said lightly. “I seem to recall you breaking into a few places and swiping a few items yourself around his age.”

Marinette raised an eyebrow. “Is that so?” she asked. “Well, maybe he gets that part of it from me but he definitely gets the getting _caught_ part from you.”

Louis let go of the vision. He’d wasted enough time watching memories other than the one he was supposed to be studying.

 

August 28, 2044

 

At around two in the morning, Marinette slipped into bed, being as careful as possible not to wake her husband. In his sleep, he turned instinctively towards her and wrapped an arm protectively around her chest. She smiled at him. “Goodnight, kitty,” she whispered. She kissed his forehead before twisting around and curling up against him, pulling his arm tighter across her body as she did so. In no time at all she was asleep as well. Their breathing was steady, contented and in sync.

They stayed that way for two hours, until the Order’s spell swept through them like a shock wave, the sheer power of it so overwhelming Louis couldn't understand how he'd slept through it originally. In an instant they were both gone, their Miraculouses abandoned and dormant, and the vision abruptly ended.

Louis started the vision over again.

 

* * *

 

Louis opened his eyes and jumped slightly, not expecting to see his sisters standing right over him, Dani’s arms crossed.

“How long have you been up here?” Dani asked.

Louis shrugged. “An hour, maybe two?” Dani and Emma exchanged a look.

“Okay,” Emma said slowly. “That was our mistake, for thinking you were capable of answering that question correctly. We’ll try again. What time did you come up here?”

Louis shrugged. “Two? It's only…” he looked at his watch and paused. “Oh,” he finally said.

“Four hours?” Dani exclaimed. “You've just been watching Mom and Dad disappear over and over again for four hours? Jesus, Louis, that can't be healthy.”

“That's not all I've been watching,” Louis said defensively. Emma raised an eyebrow.

“I don't think that's as comforting as you think it is,” she said dryly. “You’re just, what, spying on Mom’s whole life?”

“No, no I was not. It’s not spying if it’s stuff I was there for, too.”

“What even is the point of that?” Dani asked.

Louis shrugged. “Practice?”

“You’ve clearly gotten more than enough practice,” Emma said. “Are you supposed to be in trance states this much? You’ve spent practically all your free time doing this for a whole week now. Including when you’re supposed to be asleep.”

“Trance states are restive.”

Dani rolled her eyes. “Wayzz?” she called. Louis’ kwami poked his head out from one of Louis’ pockets. “Wayzz, is Louis abusing his new ability?”

“I…” Wayzz slowly floated up to Louis’ eye level, clearly stalling. “Well… I won’t question his decisions,” Wayzz said. He turned to Louis. “But… I think we have learned everything there is to learn from studying the night your parents disappeared. It might be wise to take a break from channelling the Ladybug Miraculous any further for now.”

Louis sagged. “Fine,” he said, defeated. He dropped the earrings back in their section of the Miraculous box, somewhat unceremoniously, before closing the lid with a loud bang.

“Oh, don’t sulk Louis,” Emma said impatiently, “it’s for your own-”

“Wouldn’t you see them again, if you could?”

Emma blinked, startled. “Oh,” she said, looking at Dani somewhat helplessly. “I… I see.”

“Louis,” Dani said gently, as her brother crossed the room to place the Miraculouses back in their safe, “when we miss seeing Mom and Dad, we have these little things called ‘family photo albums’. Come back to our room, we’ll look at some of them together, okay?”

Louis sighed as he moved the painting back in front of the locked safe. “Yeah, okay,” he finally said.


	32. Louis

Louis was a little worried that, after spending so much time in the memories of the Ladybug Miraculous, his dreams might be affected now that his sisters were making him actually sleep again. But to his surprise, he had no dreams whatsoever. And though sleep had never come easily for him, that night he slept nine hours straight and felt incredibly clear-headed upon waking.

Sighing, Louis looked at Wayzz. “They were right,” he said softly. “I was getting stuck in those memories, wasn’t I?”

“Perhaps a little,” Wayzz said. “It is understandable.”

“The Guardian’s supposed to know better.”

“You are not the first to be tempted,” Wayzz said gently. “There were difficulties for all your predecessors, at one point or another. The Guardian has no guardian, after all.”

Louis nodded. “Well… I guess Dani and Emma are a pretty good substitute for now,” he said. Wayzz nodded, and Louis got up to join his sisters for breakfast.

 

* * *

 

There was a huge crowd outside the school as the three teens approached an hour later. Nobody appeared to be going inside, and there was an Order guard stationed outside the door.

“Are we worried about this?” Emma asked in a whisper.

“I’m not sure,” Louis said. He turned to Dani. “What's the overall emotional tone of the crowd?”

“Confused,” she replied. “A little fear but just, you know, the normal amount for nowadays. I doubt anything really bad is happening.” Nodding, Louis walked forward, quickly reaching one of his friends at the edge of the crowd.

“Hey, Phil,” he called over, “what's going on?”

Phil looked over at them and shrugged. “School’s closed for the week,” he said. “They won't tell us why. I think people are starting to just head back home.”

“All schools?” Emma asked. “Or just the collèges, or-”

“Just _our_ school. Clarisse called a friend who goes to a different collège, and everything’s normal over there.”

As Louis squinted at the school building, Emma’s friend Jenny walked up behind her and put her arm around Emma’s shoulder. “Hey, so, is school being randomly cancelled for a week with no warning another weird France thing like half-days on Wednesdays?” she asked. “Or is it a weird Order thing?”

“Weird Order thing,” Emma said. Jenny nodded.

“Yeah, I figured,” she said. “So now what? You wanna hang out downtown? I'd rather not go back to the hotel until I have to, the owner’s starting to get even more annoying than usual about all of us still living there. I don’t know why he cares so much, it’s not like anybody travels here anymore, right? Like, nobody in their right mind is trying to get _into_ Paris, most of his rooms have been empty for months, but he still acts like the twelve of us are personally snatching food out of his children’s mouths or whatever.”

“I thought the Order was giving stipends to businesses that got stuck hosting stranded tourists,” Emma said.

“I know! You’d never know it the way he talks. If I go back before the end of the day I just know he’s gonna think up some,” Jenny shuddered, “ _chores_ or something. Anyway, Luxembourg Gardens?”

Emma shrugged. “Sure, why n-”

“No, we gotta go home,” Louis interrupted. He was still staring intently at the main building, but now he glanced briefly at Emma. “You know if our grandparents finds out school’s closed and we didn't come home right away they'll freak out.”

“Oh… oh, yeah, that’s a good point,” Emma said. “Sorry, Jenny.”

Jenny nodded sympathetically. Emma and her siblings had all played the “Overprotective Grandparents” card fairly liberally during the course of the occupation, and Jenny was used to it. “Tomorrow, then?” she asked.

“Maybe. I hope so, anyway.” Emma waved at her friend as she and her siblings started back home.

“Okay,” Dani said, once they were out of earshot, “what’s actually going on?”

“I don’t know exactly,” Louis said, “but the defenses around the school were massive. Whatever the Order’s up to, they do _not_ want us interfering. We should contact Aunt Alya as soon as we get home.”

 

* * *

 

An hour later, the three triplets were in the mansion’s panic room, staring at a map of Paris along with their grandmother and their Aunt Alya. Eighteen locations, including their school, were already circled, and Alya was currently in the process of getting a nineteenth over the phone.

“Uh huh. Seventh arrondissement… got it. What was it again, a post office? Okay, thanks Tom. Let me know if you hear about any more.” Alya circled the spot, then took a big step back and sighed. “Does that shed any light on it?” she asked.

Adele shook her head. “I still don’t see any pattern,” she said.

“Schools, post offices, banks, private homes, cafes, all spread out over the entire city… I can’t see any connection between any of these places. I certainly can’t see why the Order would want uninterrupted access to _any_ of them, much less all of them at the same time.” She turned to the kids. “None of you can see any connection I’m missing, right? There isn’t any weird thing all these places have in common?” All three shook their heads, but before they could say anything their Uncle Jonathan came into the room, walking briskly to his desk, shedding various winter accessories as he did so.

“Where have you been?” Adele snapped at him. “You’re usually here before nine. It’s almost noon.”

“Ferd sabotaged my alarm,” Jonathan said, annoyed, as he pulled a scarf off. “He's been on my case lately about getting more sleep because of this stupid head cold. I keep telling him it's nothing, but he-” Jonathan cut himself off, finally picking up on the emotional state of the room. “What’s wrong? Why didn't you call if you needed me?”

“I've been distracted.” Adele gestured to the map. “Think you could help us with this?”

Jonathan studied the map for a few seconds. “Oh, sure, I see your problem,” he said. He walked forward, grabbing Alya’s pen as he went, and circled a spot. “There you go.” He put the pen back down and crossed back to his desk. Everyone stared at the map, dumbfounded, for a moment. Then Alya’s phone rang. After a moment she answered it.

“Tom? Uh huh. Uh huh. Right.” She squinted at the map. “Let me guess, the cross street is the Rue Houdon? Great, thanks.” She hung up, then turned to Jonathan, who had already dived back into his usual work. “How did you know to circle that spot?” she asked, suspicious.

Jonathan looked up from his books. He seemed confused by the question. “It's the only one you were missing,” he replied.

“Only _what_?” Adele asked impatiently. “Jonathan, what is this a map of?”

Jonathan coughed. “Ley line intersections,” he said. “Why, what did you think it was a map of?”

“It's a map,” Adele said slowly, “of every building the Order has inexplicably barred the public from for the next week.”

Jonathan paled. “Well, that's not good,” he said.

“Why not? What the hell are ley line intersections?”

“They're-here.” Jonathan got back up, grabbed the pen, and went over to the map. He drew ten lines over the map of Paris. The previously circled locations corresponded perfectly with the meeting points of any two lines. “I know I’ve told you about these before. Ley lines are like magic channels. On their own they're not significant, but where two meet magic becomes… easier. A spell cast over a spot like that gets a decent boost. And if you’re coordinated, there are ways to anchor spells to more than one physical location if you need more than a decent boost. If the Order wants access to all twenty intersections in Paris at once, it means they're casting something _big_.”

Everyone took a moment to absorb this, and then Alya spoke. “Do you have any idea what kind of spell they'd be casting?”

Jonathan shrugged. “I imagine it's ambitious, but other than that? No idea. I'd need to get a look at their actual work.”

Alya frowned and looked at Louis. “You're sure the defenses on your school were impenetrable?”

Louis shrugged. “I’m not completely positive, but I doubt I could come up with a way to get through them in time. And definitely not without being detected.”

“Hmm.” Alya bit her lip and stared at the map, lost in thought.

“The school’s security building is separate,” Louis said. “The little hut? It’s not connected to the main building. It’s not covered by any of the defenses I saw.”

Alya looked at him. “What are you saying, exactly?”

“Just that we can get in there and access the security footage. See what they're up to. The monitors in there have direct access to every security camera in the place.”

Alya raised an eyebrow. “Skipping right over why you know so much about your school's security systems… it's a good idea. Of course, I’m sure the building’s locked but with any luck I can figure out a way to get in before the end of the week. I'm not sure-”

“I have keys,” Louis interrupted.

For a moment everyone just stared at him, and then Alya sighed and dropped her head in her hand. “Oh, Louis,” she said.

“You do _not_ ,” Dani exclaimed, almost gleefully. “You made a third set?”

“Of course I made a third set,” Louis said.

“Mom’s gonna _kill_ you when she finds out about this.”

“Yeah,” Louis agreed, “so when we’re telling her about all this later, if we could kind of gloss over this part, I’d really appreciate it.”

“Mom said if she ever found out you had a third set you'd be grounded for the rest of your natural life,” Emma said. “Which, now that I say it, I've just realized is twice as long as she thought it would be when she made that declaration. Kind of makes you wonder about the technicalities of it, doesn't it? Like, when she said that, was your natural life only a hundred years, so is that how long you're grounded for even though now you'll live longer? Or has your natural lifespan always been over two hundred and we just didn't realize until-”

“You know I haven't _used_ them,” Louis interrupted defensively. “I just kept the third set in case of an emergency.”

“An emergency?” Dani asked skeptically. “Like what?”

“Like evil wizards taking over the city and casting secret spells in the school, obviously,” Louis said. “You guys should all be praising my foresight.”

 

* * *

 

Much later that night, Alya called to say that the agent she’d sent in had successfully gotten in and out without being detected, with printouts from every camera, and he’d safely delivered them to her. Emma immediately transformed and brought Alya back to the mansion, where the rest of the family was eagerly waiting.

“Most of these are pretty boring pictures, I’m sure you can guess,” Alya said, “but the ones from this hallway…” She handed three printouts to Jonathan; Louis could just make out the image of something big scrawled over the floor of the school’s hallway, near the lockers. “Well?” Alya asked after a few seconds, looking at Jonathan. “Can you tell what they're casting?”

“Um…” Jonathan stared at the images. “Yeah, just let me look something up first in,” he looked around, and his eyes fell on his bookcase on the other side of the room. “Gabe, could you hand me the book on the third shelf there, the one with the red spine?” Gabriel identified the book in question and tossed it to Jonathan. “Thanks.” Jonathan began flipping through it, but two seconds in he looked up and squinted suspiciously at his sister. “What just got into you?” he asked.

“Hmm? Me? Nothing, absolutely nothing,” Adele said, looking suspiciously like she was fighting the urge to grin. Her brother squinted at her for another second, then shrugged and went back to flipping through his book.

“Okay,” he finally said, looking back and forth between the printouts and his book, “it's definitely some kind of dampening field… yeah. Wow. That is a really intense one, actually. Yeah, that… that is gonna block all magic in Paris once they turn it on. No wonder they need all twenty ley line intersections as anchors. All forms of it-runic, quantic, you name it.” He stared at the images for another second, and then he began laughing. Everyone else in the room stared at him, confused.

“Quantic?” Adele repeated. “So this is for preventing the children from transforming?”

“Yeah, I'm guessing that's the idea,” Jonathan said, still grinning. “Actually… they can cast it without activating it right away. If I were them I’d wait until the kids were attacking and _then_ activate it. Their transformations would be knocked right off of them.”

Adele went pale. “So how do we stop-”

“Stop it? No, no, no, don't do a goddamn thing. Don't let the Order have _any_ idea we figured this out. Just let them do exactly what they're planning. Oh, man, the resources they're gonna pour into this-this has got to be taking up a ton of their focus and energy.” He laughed again.

“Jonathan,” Adele said slowly, “would you mind explaining what, exactly, is so funny? Is it that the Order won't be able to use magic either?”

“Of course not,” he said, looking at one of the pages, “they put a backdoor in for themselves. A password, basically, that’ll let them keep using magic even when this gets turned on.”

“And what, exactly, is so great about the Order casting a spell that will allow them to cut off the children’s access to their magic? What is so great about the Order locking everyone in Paris out of magic with a password only they know?”

Jonathan frowned, confused, and then understanding dawned. “Oh! Sorry, sorry, I should have said.” He pointed at a section of the spell. “The password’s right here.”

For a moment, everyone was speechless. Finally Adele took a breath, her expression cautiously hopeful. “So…”

“So the Order is pouring a ton of power into this,” Jonathan said. “Power that, I don’t know for sure, but I highly suspect they’re close to reaching their limit on. They’re going to bet it all on _this_ spell, if they don’t figure out that we’ve found out about it. This is their trump card, right? Their way to take out the new superheroes once and for all. And one day, when all three kids are attacking them, they’re going to activate it.” Jonathan grinned. “And absolutely _nothing_ is going to happen.”


	33. Emma

After the last school day before winter break, as they were beginning to walk home, Dani sidled up to Emma. “Henri’s upset about something,” she said quietly.

Emma scanned the crowd of departing students, and a few seconds later her eyes locked onto the boy. “He looks fine to me,” Emma said, which earned her an eyeroll from Dani. “Anyway, I’m not sure you should be-”

“Look, I can’t help telling he’s upset, and he’s clearly closer to you than me, so I thought you might like to know,” Dani said. “If you don’t like it, pretend I didn’t say anything and I’ll never do it again, okay? But if you actually care about him, maybe go check on him.”

After a brief internal struggle, Emma let out an aggravated sigh and made her way over to Henri. “Hey,” she said as she approached.

“Oh, hi Emma,” he said. He seemed about as pleased as he usually did to see her, and Emma honestly couldn’t tell anything was different about him. “How are you?” he asked.

“Good. How, um, how are you?”

“Good.”

Emma stared at him awkwardly for a few seconds. “Look,” she finally said, “Dani said you were upset about something. But honestly, it drives me up the wall when she pulls her empath stuff on me, so I totally get it if you’d rather I just pretend she didn’t say anything, and I’ll tell her never to do it again, okay?”

Henri blinked. “Oh.” He let out an awkward chuckle. “No, that’s fine,” he said. “Dani can keep, uh, pulling her ‘empath stuff’ on me if she wants.”

“Oh. Okay. So, um… something wrong?”

“Nah,” he said. “It’s nothing, I’ll get over it. You have way bigger things to worry about.”

Emma raised an eyebrow. “Right now my biggest thing to worry about is one of my friends thinks he can’t talk to me when he’s upset about something,” she said. “I know I'm not exactly… I'm not usually a great shoulder to cry on or anything, but I can listen. And I don't want you to think you can't talk to me just because I have… other stuff going on. It would really bother me, if that other stuff pushed you away, you know?”

“Oh, jeez,” Henri said, “I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking of it like-of course I don’t want to push you away. It’s really not a big thing, though, I promise. It’s just, um… we were supposed to leave for our family trip to Vietnam today, that’s all. Vi was really looking forward to seeing where we came from.”

“Oh,” Emma said, suddenly painfully aware that this wasn’t something she could personally relate to at all. “That sucks, I’m sorry.”

Henri shrugged. “It’s fine,” he said. “We’ll go next year.”

Emma looked up at him. “You think?”

“Totally.” Henri lowered his voice to a near whisper. “You know, once you’ve wiped every Order member off the face of the continent.”

Emma laughed. “Yeah, I’ll get right on that.” They continued walking in silence for a few moments.

“Do you,” Henri glanced down at Emma nervously, “I don’t know, do you want to take a walk or something?”

“Oh. Um.” Emma glanced at the time displayed on her phone. “Sorry, I, uh… wasn’t joking when I said I’d get right on that, actually. We’ve got… stuff tonight.”

“Right, right, of course,” Henri said quickly, turning red. “Um. Some other time, though?”

Emma nodded emphatically. “Yeah, I’d love to.”

Henri smiled. “Great,” he said. “Looking forward to it. I, um, I’m in this direction, so…” He waved as he turned the corner, and Emma waved back for a few seconds before running back to her siblings.

“Jesus Christ,” Dani said as Emma caught up, “you two are the most awkward things on the planet around each other, I bet I’d be able to feel it from the other side of the city.” Emma punched Dani’s arm on reflex, and Louis laughed as Dani made a face.

“Um… thanks, actually,” Emma said. “For the tip.”

Dani grinned. “No problem.”

 

* * *

 

Emma’s grandmother handed her a note. “Alya called with the address earlier,” she said. “That’s the rendezvous point.”

“Okay,” Emma said, reading the address and recognizing it immediately. She'd been there many times over the past few months. It was one of Alya’s more commonly-used safe places. The home of a friend of hers, a woman who’d been trapped outside the barrier on an international business trip. It was out of the way, and there was a back alley entrance that made it easy to enter without being observed. Emma looked back at her siblings, both transformed. “I’ll check in and come back for you two if everyone’s ready to go, okay?” They nodded, and a second later Emma was gone.

Normally, Emma’s teleportations were near-instantaneous. This one took almost a full two seconds, which felt like an eternity as far as Emma was concerned, and there was a yanking feeling in the pit of her stomach the entire time.

When she rematerialized, it was pitch black. Emma didn’t know where she was, but she was certain it was nowhere near where she’d been trying to go. Emma instinctively tried to teleport back to the mansion. Nothing. She tried again. Still nothing.

 _Stay calm_ , she told herself. She took a deep breath. _First things first, figure out where you are_. Emma figured her best bet was to cautiously make her way forward until she found a wall, then make her way around the perimeter of the room until she found a door. She put a hand up-

-and immediately banged it against a metal wall. She jumped back in surprise, and crashed against another wall.

 _Fuck_.

Sighing, Emma slowly raised her hands on either side and quickly encountered walls there, too. Well… not so much walls as the sides of a box. Maybe a meter by a meter, if that. Emma reached up and knocked the ceiling lightly with her knuckles. Yep. Completely shut in. How the hell had she wound up here?

A memory popped into Emma’s head suddenly, something Uncle Jonathan had said a few weeks ago, when he and her grandparents were talking about the old days.

_What about that teleportation trap that warlock set up in ‘98, remember? Gabriel was stuck in that thing for like five hours before I found a book and talked him through escaping._

Teleportation trap, he’d said. Emma had actually heard her uncle utter the words “teleportation trap” and she hadn’t asked a single follow-up question.

Jesus Christ, she was supposed to be the smart one, wasn’t she?

Emma took another breath, then pressed her ear against the side of the metal box. It felt thick, but she could just  barely make out what sounded like two Order guards talking.

“… looks like she’s still alive. The agent should have taken her down by now.”

“Be patient. We still don’t know a lot about their invulnerability, but we know it’s not inexhaustible. She can’t get out, that’s the thing to remember. Eventually she’ll breathe enough of it to-”

Emma pulled away, horrified. The smell inside the box, which Emma had not noticed until now, was _wrong_. Emma suddenly regretted all those deep, calming breaths she’d just taken. Hands shaking slightly, she grabbed a fan off her hip, activated its phone function, and called Louis.

“Emma?” she heard him say a few seconds later. God, just hearing his voice was a relief. “Is everything okay at the safe-”

“I’m not there,” Emma interrupted. “I’m stuck somewhere.”

“Huh? What are you-”

“I’m _stuck_ , Louis, I’m stuck in some weird metal box and I can’t teleport out of it and I can hear Order guards outside of it talking about how I should be dead by now from some gas and I’m guessing this is one of those teleportation traps Grandfather and Uncle Jonathan were talking about last month and I don’t know how to get _out_ of it so if you could get one of them before I drop dead in here, _that would be really fucking nice, okay_?” Emma’s voice had gotten slightly hysterical at the end, and again she tried to calm herself down, this time without the accompanying deep breath.

“Fuck,” Louis muttered, and Emma heard him take off running as fast as he could. Emma tried to slow her heartbeat through sheer force of will as she hear Louis shout a frantic explanation of what was going on, and a second later she heard her uncle’s voice.

“Emma?” Jonathan said. “Emma, I’m going to talk you through getting out of there, okay?” His tone was roughly a thousand times more calm and soothing than Emma had ever heard it before.

“I don’t have five hours,” she said. “I don’t know if I have five minutes.”

“It’s not going to take five hours, Emma, I promise. That’s just how long the research took the first time, but once I had it I had Gabe out in no time, didn’t I?”

“He was very helpful,” Emma heard her grandfather say. “You’re in good hands.”

“Hear that, Emma?”

“Mm hmm.” Emma did feel a lot calmer now. Until, that is, the cynical part of her brain pointed out that if her uncle was calling her grandfather “Gabe”, and her grandfather was actually willing to say something nice about her uncle, the two of them must have been terrified out of their goddamn minds.

“Okay, Emma,” her uncle kept saying her name, “what I need you to do is see if you can teleport-”

“If I could teleport, do you think I’d be calling?” Emma interrupted angrily.

“- _inside_ the box, Emma, tell me if you can teleport _inside_ the trap. From one corner to the other, say.”

“There’s barely enough room to stand in here!”

“Just a centimeter, Emma, it doesn’t matter how small the distance is, okay? I really need to know.”

Emma sighed, then pressed herself against one side of the box and willed herself forward a few centimeters. “It worked,” she said.

“Okay, that’s a _really_ good sign, Emma, okay? That means the teleportation block is physically manifesting in the walls of the trap and nowhere else. If you can interrupt it, you can get out. Do you think you could punch a hole through one of the walls? Or even just pry two of them apart, just a sliver?”

Emma punched the wall with all her might. The bang echoed loudly, but she didn’t even make a dent. “No,” she said.

“That’s okay, Emma,” her uncle replied smoothly. “What I need for you to do for me now is run your hand all around the sides of the trap and tell me if you feel any raised sections. A long, thin, raised line running down the side, okay?”

Emma felt along in the dark. “Yeah, there’s something like that here.”

Jonathan exhaled in obvious relief. “Okay, great. That’s what’s generating the anti-teleportation property of the trap. All you have to do is break that and you should be able to get out.”

It felt fragile enough. Emma pressed her thumbnail against it as hard as she could and felt it crack. She tried to teleport again.

“It didn’t work,” Emma said, somewhat frantically. “I broke it and it didn’t work, I’m still stuck.”

“Are you sure it’s broken?"

“Yes! I felt it-wait.” Emma ran her finger over it. “It’s not broken but it _was_ , I know it was, I don’t know how-”

“That means it’s self-repairing, Emma,” her uncle said, his voice still steady. “That’s not ideal, but it’s okay, because the repair isn’t instantaneous and your powers are, Emma. That means all you have to do is time it right, okay? Try teleporting the instant you break it.”

Emma tried again. “It’s still not working.”

“It’s gotta be timed exactly right, Emma. It might take you a few more tries to get it, and I know that’s frustrating, but I promise-”

“I’m dizzy,” Emma said quietly.

There was a brief moment of pained silence. “Emma,” her uncle said, “you _have_ to keep trying. I know it’s hard, I know it’s scary, but I promise this will work if you get it right, okay? Do you want me to count for you? I’ll just… I’ll just keep counting to three over and over until you’re back, okay?”

“Okay,” Emma whispered. As her uncle started counting, Emma held her thumb over the line again, and as Jonathan said ‘three’ she cracked it again, doing her best to teleport the moment it gave way under her nail. Nothing. Shaking off her disappointment, she tried again on the next ‘three’. Still nothing. Emma impatiently brushed a tear aside and tried again, doing her best to adjust for a response time she knew was woefully inadequate.

One, two, _three_. One, two, _three_. One, two, _three_.

Emma had stopped expecting it to work when, quite suddenly, she was back in the mansion’s panic room. Her uncle was holding Louis’ miraculous, talking into it, and the rest of her family was gathered anxiously around, her grandparents holding each other tightly.

“Emma!” her grandmother exclaimed. “Oh, sweetheart, are you-”

“Don’t detransform,” her uncle interrupted, somewhat urgently. “We don’t know what you were breathing in or how much of it is still in your system, you should hang onto your invulnerability until we’re sure-” He was cut off, quite suddenly, by Emma throwing her arms around him and clinging to him, shaking slightly. After a moment of hesitation, he hugged her back.

“You’re okay,” Jonathan said softly, and Emma wasn’t sure who he was reassuring, exactly.

“Why the hell am I the one who keeps almost dying?” Emma shouted angrily, not loosening her grip.

“Well, technically speaking, of your three power sets, teleportation is the easiest one to target via conventional-” Jonathan must have caught a glare from Emma’s grandmother, because he fell silent mid-explanation. “Just dumb luck, kid,” he said instead.

“You got me out. You saved me.”

“Oh,” Jonathan said. “Yeah, sure, anytime. Don’t mention it.”


	34. Emma

“You’re _certain_ it’s safe for Emma to teleport again,” Gabriel asked for the third time. He was hovering over Jonathan, who was seated at his desk, having spent the last ten hours thoroughly researching the matter. Surprisingly, neither Gabriel’s proximity nor his lack of faith in Jonathan’s research abilities seemed to be bothering Jonathan.

“Yes,” he said again. “For now, anyway.”

“You said the trap was self-repairing. The one I was stuck in back then wasn’t self-repairing.”

“It is,” Jonathan agreed. “And if Emma _willingly_ teleported back into it then, yes, she’d be in the same boat as before. But the spell that initially grabbed her, the spell that redirected any teleportations to that trap, that’s a one-use spell.”

“What if they made more than one?”

“Then Emma would have wound up in their second trap instead of back here.”

“What if they’ve make another one now?”

“There’s a lunar component to the spell. They won’t be able to make another one until the next full moon.”

Emma raised an eyebrow. “So after a month…”

“After a month,” Jonathan said, “you stop teleporting.”

“But,” Emma glanced at her siblings, “but we can’t get people out of the city without it. We can’t do _anything_ without it. What if I just, you know, break the second trap like I broke the first?” Emma kept her voice perfectly steady as she said this, not betraying how she felt about this prospect, but all the same Dani immediately wrapped an arm around her shoulders in response.

Jonathan and Gabriel exchanged a glance. “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Jonathan finally said.

“Why not? Without teleportation-”

“The Order, as of late, has begun to learn from its mistakes,” Emma’s grandfather interrupted. “They now know poisonous gas is an ineffective method. The next trap could have something more… immediate, waiting inside for you.”

Emma paled. “Oh.”

“For now,” her grandfather said gently, “just focus on the mission tonight. After that,” he tapped his fingers together for a moment, “after that, I believe the time has come to discuss reevaluating our current strategy.”

 

* * *

 

The rescue mission had been postponed, obviously, until they were certain teleportation was safe. So now, once again, Emma transformed, focused on the safe house location, and-with only the barest hint of unease and hesitation-willed herself to it. This time, she arrived instantaneously. Exhaling, she glanced around. Her Aunt Alya was there, and she flashed Emma a quick, relieved grin as Emma arrived safely. Emma had the impression Alya would have preferred to hug her tightly, but around others they did their best not to betray the personal nature of their relationship.

“Everyone’s here,” Alya told her. “We’ll be ready to begin moving to the waypoint outside the city in a few moments, once I’ve finished going over safety protocols.”

Emma nodded, then teleported back to the mansion. Both Louis and Dani grinned widely upon seeing her, and then Emma took them each by the hand and brought them back to the safe house.

After what she’d been through a few days earlier, Emma was relieved to have a straightforward evacuation mission. All the people assembled had been getting attention from the Order, but not enough to get arrested quite yet, so they’d all been able to make it here on their own, no superheroic rescue needed. In all likelihood, only Emma’s teleportation would be needed, and the three heroes would be back home inside of an hour. Dani was here to keep an ear out, in a manner of speaking, as she’d be able to sense if any Order operatives were about to close in, and Louis was here for additional backup in case Dani wasn’t able to give them enough warning. But all that was unlikely, thank God. Emma wasn’t sure if-

Quite suddenly, Dani grabbed Emma’s elbow and squeezed, hard. Swearing internally, Emma grabbed Dani and Louis’ hands and took them back to the mansion, where they could speak freely. Dani was expecting it, but Louis jumped. “What’s-”

“Which one?” Emma asked her sister. She knew what Dani’s signal had meant, of course. This was the first time they’d needed it, but they’d had a plan in place for this contingency since the beginning.

“Back row, the young woman,” Dani replied. “Blonde, red sweater.”

Louis’ eyes widened. “You mean-”

“One of the evacuees,” Dani interrupted, “is a spy. I’m positive.”

“Just her? You’re sure?” Emma asked. Dani nodded. “Well… that’s something, I guess. You ready, Louis?” Louis looked a little pale, but he nodded. Dani took his hand. “Rajji, eyes unseen.”

The two of them rematerialized invisibly at the back of the room, right behind the woman Dani had identified. Louis reached forward, touched the woman’s temple, and she instantly lost consciousness. Before she had time to fall forward, Emma grabbed the woman’s shoulder and the three of them were gone.

 

* * *

 

“You're sure she can't escape? Or cast any spells?” Alya asked.

Louis nodded. “Yeah, I'm sure. There's no magic on her or in her whatsoever. It's completely safe to question her. And she didn’t have any time to send any kind of alert before I knocked her out.”

“Man, I wish you could do that in battle,” Dani said. “It’d be sweet. Too bad they have to be caught off guard.”

“Eh.” Louis shrugged, obviously uncomfortable. “I don’t know. Even using it like this makes me uncomfortable. It’s supposed to be for people who are too weak or injured to safely remain awake. It’s for healing. Using it offensively seems… well, offensive.”

Alya sighed. “I’m sorry, Louis, but-”

“I know,” he interrupted. “It’s… I’m not the only one who’s had to do something they find morally gray. I’ll get over it.”

Alya nodded. “Speaking of…” she took a breath and let it out slowly. “I guess it’s time to question her,” she muttered. “It's not something I ever imagined myself doing. I… I haven't really let myself think about how far I'm willing to-”

“You don't need to,” Adele interrupted. “I'll come with you.”

Alya raised an eyebrow. “You?”

Adele nodded. “With my abilities, I’ll be able to sense if she’s lying or not. Hell, I'll be able to read her reactions to our questions even if she doesn't answer them at all. We don't need to do anything questionable to get information out of her, I promise.”

Alya sighed in relief. “Well, that's something at least. Alright, let’s-”

“Maybe I should do it,” Jonathan interrupted from the other side of the room. Every head turned towards him, shocked.

“You?” Adele asked.

“Why?” Gabriel added, not making any effort to keep the suspicion out of his voice.

Jonathan shrugged. “Why not? I could use the change of pace, and I'm sure Adele has better things to be doing.”

“Better than questioning an Order spy?” Adele asked dryly. “No, not really.”

“What _exactly_ are you up to?” Gabriel asked.

Jonathan rolled his eyes. “You caught me, Gabriel, I've secretly been working for the Order this whole time. And instead of just handing all the most wanted people in the city over to them on a silver plate months ago, they thought-”

“No one is amused, Jonathan,” Gabriel interrupted. “You'd better have a good reason for your suggestion, because Adele is a far stronger empath than you.”

“If it's the strongest empath you want, send Dani in,” Jonathan said in response. Gabriel clenched his jaw for a moment.

“Danielle,” he said slowly, “does not have any experience with interrogations.”

“Yeah, _no kidding_ she doesn't,” Jonathan said, suddenly furious. “She doesn't have the experience Adele does, that's for sure. She doesn't have four traumatic years of captivity under her belt, of being forced to aid interrogations against her will, forced to help the enemies that stole her life from her, she doesn't have the PTSD that comes with that experience, the flashbacks, the panic attacks, does she?”

Gabriel blinked. “Oh,” he said, all traces of suspicion and anger now gone. He looked at his wife. “It… it didn't occur to me that-”

“The sheer magnitude of things that don't occur to you, Agreste-”

“Jonathan,” Adele interrupted. She sighed. “I appreciate your concern, but I'll be fine.” She walked over to him and put a hand on his shoulder. “Okay?”

Jonathan looked at her. “It wouldn't be your first unanticipated trigger,” he pointed out.

“I haven't had an incident in over a decade.”

“That's a lie,” Jonathan said. His eyebrows went up. “Look at that, I’m a strong enough empath after all.”

Adele sighed again. “Barring one nightmare over a month ago,” she corrected, “I haven't had an incident in over a decade. And this isn’t going to be anything like the interrogations I had to do thirty years ago. I’m not going to be handcuffed and dragged into the room, I’m not going to have a guard hovering over me ready to backhand me if I don’t-” Adele cut herself off suddenly, glancing at her grandchildren. All three were staring at her silently. It was far more than any of them had ever heard before, about the years their grandmother had been missing, and it was clear from her expression that she regretted revealing as much as she had in front of them. Taking a breath, Adele turned back to her brother. “I’ll be fine,” she repeated. After a moment, Jonathan sighed begrudgingly, and Adele patted his arm before she and Alya left.

 

* * *

 

“Well,” Adele said slowly as she and Alya re-entered the room, “I think we got everything we're going to get out of her. Does everyone want the good news first or the bad news?”

“The ‘Where the hell are Mom and Dad news,’ please,” Dani replied. Adele and Alya exchanged a look.

“She didn't know anything about that,” Alya said, “but we got a good lead for where to look. I've got people that can look into it.”

“Is that the good news or the bad news?” Emma asked immediately.

Her grandmother sighed. “That's what passes for good news, I'm afraid.”

“So… the bad?”

“The bad news,” Adele said slowly, “is that the Order’s investigations into Miraculous magic extends far beyond looking up news articles from my and Gabriel's run as superheroes. Beyond Maori artifacts and teleportation traps. They've been doing their own research. And they're very close to developing a way to detect Miraculous holders.”

For a moment, nobody spoke. It was Gabriel who finally broke the silence. “How close?”

“A month. Maybe less.”

Emma rolled her eyes. “Same deadline as my teleportation,” she muttered. “How considerate.”

Gabriel looked at Jonathan. “What's your status on finding the superheroes?”

“I’m ninety-five percent certain they’re in the Bay of Biscay,” Jonathan said. “Probably near the coast, just based on weather patterns, but not necessarily.” He sighed. “I can't narrow it down any further with the information I have.”

“That seems pretty narrow,” Emma said. “How many places could there be to stash fifty superheroes?”

Jonathan shrugged. “If I were them, I would have just made my own island, not on any map. They clearly have the power.”

“Oh,” Emma said. “So… not actually that narrow.”

“That might be narrow enough that I can dig around, find something out,” Alya said. “Between that and the lead we got from this woman… well, I'll see what I can do.” Alya sighed. “On top of that, the safe house is compromised, as is my contact who originally sent the spy to me. Emma, I’ll need you to get him out of the city.” Emma nodded. “And…” Alya hesitated before looking back at Adele, “there’s the question of what to do with the spy.”

“We erase her memory,” Gabriel said immediately.

“Jesus,” Emma muttered, “that’s just everyone’s solution to everything, isn’t it?”

Her grandfather looked at her. “I understand your revulsion at the prospect,” he said, “but we cannot let her back into the world remembering what she’s seen or what she’s revealed. This is the most merciful option.”

Alya raised an eyebrow. “Memory spells are something we can do now?” she asked.

“They are,” Gabriel assured her.

“I don’t know,” Louis said uncertainly. “I might be able to pull off a memory spell but I don’t know if it would be strong enough that the Order’s magicians couldn’t quickly break it once they realized she was under it.”

“It would be basically unbreakable,” Jonathan said, “if she willingly cast it on herself.”

Alya frowned. “How do we get her to do that?”

“Easy,” Jonathan said. “Dani akumatizes her.”

On the other side of the room, Dani stiffened. “I can only amplify or dampen emotions and desires,” she said, and it was clear she was putting a lot of effort into keeping her voice calm. “She would have to want to do it at least a little.”

“Oh, she’ll want to do it,” Jonathan said, as though it were obvious, “once you point out that if she doesn’t we’ll have to kill her.”

“You… you want me to threaten to kill her just so I can manipulate her emotions to force her to erase her own memory?” Dani asked indignantly. “What kind of person even _thinks_ of doing something like that?”

To Emma’s surprise, her uncle’s response to this was to immediately turn to his sister. “What is _wrong_ with you?” he asked.

Adele sighed. “Jonathan-”

“Are you telling these kids _anything_? Why wouldn’t you tell Dani about every single Champion and akuma you’ve ever made?”

Adele glared at her brother. “It’s not exactly a moment I’m proud of.”

Jonathan sighed. “I get that,” he said, “and I get that a big part of that is my fault. But, on the other hand, _get over it_. We’re fighting a war here, Adele, and your grandchildren are on the front lines of it. They need to know _everything_ we know, everything we’ve learned. That includes every akuma you’ve made, because knowing she can use her powers to erase memories might just save Dani’s life. Jesus, we almost lost Emma two days ago because we were too stupid to realize we should have taught her everything we learned fifty years ago about teleportation traps. How can we _possibly_ keep making the same mistake after that?”

Adele looked as though she wanted to argue, but after a moment she deflated slightly and looked back at Dani. “Danielle,” she said softly.

“Did you really do that?” Dani asked. Her indignation was slowly fading, confusion and hesitation taking its place.

Adele nodded. “Yes,” she said. She glanced quickly around the room. “Let’s talk about it privately, okay?” After a moment, Dani nodded reluctantly, and the two left the room.

Emma looked over at her grandfather. “You got any creepy uses of my powers you’re hiding from me?” she asked.

“Nothing immediately comes to mind,” he replied dryly.


	35. Danielle

“Ready?”

The question caught Dani off-guard. Her grandmother had simply been asking if Dani had finished getting dressed, probably because Dani had a tendency to take twice as long as her siblings when it came to this kind of thing. She’d lost track of the time while experimenting with her hair, her siblings had left the room in their formalwear ages ago, and Dani was somewhat startled to see that it was now completely dark outside. Soon it would be time to leave for the New Year’s gala.

That event, however, was nothing compared to what would be coming after. In the past week an enormous amount of planning had gone into pulling together a mission, and now…

In less than six hours, Dani would finally know where her parents were.

After months of waiting, of treading water, of merely _getting by_ , barely making a dent in the Order’s influence… after all that it was finally time to figure out where Dani’s parents were, along with the rest of the missing superheroes of Europe. Finally time to rescue them, bring them into the fight, and actually stand a chance of _defeating_ the Order, instead of merely resisting it.

Danielle Agreste had never been more ready for anything in her life.

“Very,” Dani said, and Adele smiled.

“Your brother and sister are waiting downstairs,” her grandmother said. “Your grandfather and I will be down shortly, I just need to put my hair up.” Dani nodded, but followed her grandmother back to the master bedroom instead of going to wait downstairs with her siblings. Adele said nothing, but Dani could tell her grandmother was happy for the company.

Adele sat down at her room’s rather sizeable vanity and began pulling pins out of its top drawer. Dani poked through the other drawers idly as her grandmother pulled her silver hair up in its usual twist. “There,” she said a few minutes later, putting her last pin in place. “Now we just need to wait for Gabriel.”

“No jewelry?” Dani asked her grandmother, opening a drawer filled with necklaces. “You’ve got so much of it.”

“Oh, your grandfather will pick something out,” Adele replied.

Dani looked up. “You can't choose your own jewelry?”

Adele raised her eyebrows, and to Dani’s surprise she actually saw a spark of mischief in the woman’s eyes. “Watch this,” she said, before looking through the drawer and picking out what Dani thought was a very tasteful diamond necklace. “Just wait.” She looked back at the drawer, squinted, and then pulled out another piece, a teardrop ruby pendant on a thin gold chain. “Here, you wear this.”

“Me?” Dani picked it up gently. “It looks really expensive,” she said, somewhat nervously.

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Adele said dismissively. “Your mother wore that about ten years ago, I think. As Ladybug, to a charity event.”

Not trusting herself to speak, Dani nodded and put the necklace on without another word.

“Adele, have you seen my-” Dani’s grandfather entered the bedroom, and about five steps in caught sight of his wife. He raised an eyebrow, then walked over to the jewelry drawer, dug through it for a moment, and pulled out a necklace nearly identical to the one Adele had on. “Here,” he said.

Adele shot Dani an I-told-you-so look  before graciously accepting the necklace and switching it for the one she had on.

“Those are practically the same,” Dani said. “They’re both diamonds, right?”

“Your grandmother is wearing a candlelight ivory gown,” Gabriel said immediately. “She should be wearing a necklace with a white gold setting, not platinum.”

“Does it matter?” Dani asked.

“Danielle,” her grandfather said impatiently, “your grandmother is the closest thing to perfection in this city. She might as well put in the minimal effort required to achieving it outright.”

Adele raised an eyebrow, but Dani could sense her pleased flush all the same. “Gabriel, I'm less than a year away from seventy,” she said.

Gabriel blinked. “I fail to see how that’s relevant.”

 

* * *

 

Technically, of the three of them only Emma needed to be at the ball for the mission to succeed. But there was no reason for her to attend if Dani and Louis stayed home, and it was important not to raise suspicions. Not many children or teens would be there, but their grandfather had simply informed the woman in charge of the guest list that he’d be attending with his wife and three grandchildren, and that was that. Being on the Citizen’s Council, it turned out, had its advantages after all.

A week earlier, Aunt Alya had taken everything she’d learned from the Order spy, combined it with everything Uncle Jonathan had managed to get out of his research, and she’d begun digging. Only two days later, she had something. There was a highly classified location fitting her parameters, and while Alya’s contact inside the Order didn’t know where it was, he knew where its location was recorded.

Unfortunately, it was in the heart of the Order’s most fortified base, the Luxembourg Palace.

Dani actually had rather unique memories of the place, though they were not her own. They belonged to Senator Ortoli, her first Champion, the man who’d been sentenced to public execution for organizing and holding the palace’s barricade on Occupation Day. Dani still carried in her a shadow of that rush of adrenaline, of defiance, of hope.

The barricade, however, had not even lasted the day, and now the magical wards and defenses around the palace were so strong Louis said he felt uncomfortable just walking near it. Getting in uninvited would be impossible.

Fortunately Dani’s grandfather, who’d been on the planning committee, had had the foresight weeks earlier to insist on the Luxembourg as the location for the gala. Invitations were not an issue.

The wards didn’t bother Dani, but she could feel the shudder her brother was suppressing as clear as day so she reached out and squeezed his hand as they walked through them. Once properly inside Louis relaxed noticeably and Dani let herself look around. She’d been inside before, of course, years ago. School field trips, tours with distant relatives visiting from out of town, and so on. She’d never experienced it like this, though. Dani had never attended a ball before, and it was like a dream. The gowns, the ornaments, the gilded halls and crystal chandeliers, all of it came together to create a scene straight out of a fairy tale.

It was almost enough, in fact, to distract from the Order guards posted everywhere.

“Let’s grab that table at the back,” Emma said, pointing to the far end of the banquet hall to a table somewhat removed from the guards and general crowds. It was also, Dani noted, in the general direction of where Emma would be teleporting the three of them later in the evening.

“Not so fast,” their grandmother said, grabbing Emma and Louis by their shoulders before they could get away. “I know it’s your first formal event, so maybe you kids don’t know it’s polite to greet the hosts when you arrive.”

Louis raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, we don’t know the first thing about fancy parties,” he said. “Which one’s the salad fork? Where does your napkin go? Do you give your regards to the fascist wizards before or after you’ve said hello to their civilian puppet leaders-” Emma smacked the side of her brother’s head, cutting him off as their grandmother sighed.

“Consider it part of your training,” their grandfather said. “Smiling through one’s teeth is a survival skill in this family and it’s time you three mastered it.”

“Adele!” Before Dani could place the source of the cry, a yellow blur had rushed past her and thrown its arms around her grandmother.

“Chloe! Oh, darling, it’s good to see you,” Adele said warmly, returning the hug. Dani and her siblings exchanged a brief look of shock.

“I heard about Adrien,” Chloe said. “I’m so, so sorry.” To Dani’s surprise, the note of despair in the woman’s voice was completely sincere. It was probably the first time anything about Chloe had seemed sincere to Dani. She’d met Chloe a handful of times, but for the most part she’d known of the woman through her parents. Her mother and Chloe were almost outright hostile towards one another, and while her father considered Chloe a friend he mostly seemed stressed by her presence, which forced him to play peacemaker. It was odd, to suddenly see her through the eyes of someone whose feelings were entirely maternal.

“I know I should have come,” Chloe continued, “but things have been, well…” Dani couldn’t see Chloe’s eyes, but based on the spike of fear she was feeling, Dani was sure they were darting around the room nervously.

“Don’t give it another thought,” Adele said firmly. “You have your own family to look after, of course I understand that. How are they?”

“Oh,” Chloe sighed, and Dani suddenly remembered that, due to Chloe’s wife being the Prime Minister, her family had spent the first few weeks of the occupation under house arrest. “As good as anybody’s is, I guess.”

 

* * *

 

The novelty of being at a fancy ball wore off quickly. The three of them had grabbed the table in the back as soon as they could get away, and shortly after Emma quietly confirmed that she was close enough to the room one story up that she’d be able to teleport accurately to its location. Now, hours later, they were just impatient for Phase Two to begin.

Leaving before midnight would be suspicious, but festivities were scheduled to continue well into the night. The three of them would be sent home early, ostensibly due to their age, while their grandparents remained. At a quarter to one, the delayed dampener smuggled onto the premises inside their grandmother’s clutch would go off and muffle the anti-teleportation field for roughly ten minutes. Emma would then bring them all to the room upstairs, the one with an envelope containing their parents’ whereabouts.

They had less than half an hour to go, and between Dani’s own boredom, the boredom she was picking up from her siblings, and the general feeling of hopelessness permeating the event, Dani was just about to go mad.

“Grandma and Grandfather are dancing,” Louis said, interrupting a solid twenty minutes of silence. His sisters looked across the floor, and the three of them watched their grandparents dance for a while.

“Wow,” Dani finally said. “They’re really good, huh?”

“Almost as good as Mom and Dad,” Emma agreed. She stuck out a foot and frowned at it. “Why didn’t I get those genes?”

“It’s not genetic,” Louis said quietly. “It’s a Miraculous thing.”

“Huh?”

“They’re good at dancing with each other because they’re used to fighting alongside one another,” Louis said, “and when you’re partnered up with another Miraculous user, you become… like, in sync, I guess you could say. It’s for combat, so you can coordinate and strategize without needing to talk first, but it carries over to stuff like this.”

Emma raised an eyebrow. “So… you’re saying that after a lifetime of having two left feet, I finally get to be good at dancing. But instead of being good at dancing with the love of my life like Mom and Dad, or Grandma and Grandfather, I only get to be good at dancing with one of you two.”

“Yep,” Louis said.

“Lovely.” Sighing, Emma put her foot back under the table and returned her focus to the dance floor.

Suddenly, Dani became aware of someone approaching them fast, with intention. She quickly tapped her knuckles once on the surface of the table, so Emma and Louis knew not to say anything sensitive, before turning to the source of the signature. Her eyes locked onto Chloe Bérégovoy, of all people. A second later she was at the table, and sitting down next to them before anyone could say anything about it.

“Hi, kids,” Chloe said. She knocked back the rest of the drink she’d brought over with her and immediately started waving for another. The three teens exchanged a look.

“You okay, Aunt Chloe?” Dani asked. She hadn’t had much occasion to feel how excessive drinking affected emotional states before tonight, and overall Dani was not enjoying it. Chloe had been depressed at the start of the evening, of course, but now that depression had warped into something not unlike quicksand.

“Oh, perfect,” Chloe said, smiling brightly. “Isn’t that the point of this little gala? To celebrate how _perfect_ everything is now?” She dropped her grin abruptly and slouched in the chair. The waiter she’d been impatiently waving at finally reached the table and Chloe grabbed a drink off his tray before abruptly shooing him away.

“Are, uh, are you sure you need another one of those?” Louis asked.

“What I need,” Chloe muttered, “is one of those useless new superheroes to show up and burn this palace to the ground.” She quickly finished off her glass. “Or one of Césaire’s little freedom fighters, I’m not picky.”

Twin flashes of panic went off in Emma and Louis, and Emma looked around wide-eyed to make sure nobody had overheard, though she knew Dani would have warned them if anyone was listening. Dani, for her part, was finding this level of honesty from an adult refreshing. Chloe had never exactly been terribly pleasant towards the three of them, true, but say what you would about her, she didn’t censor herself just because she was talking to minors.

“I don’t, uh… I don’t think that’s really their MO,” Louis finally said.

Chloe shrugged. “Whatever.” She leaned on one elbow on the table’s surface and began idly running a finger around the rim of her empty wineglass. It let out a soft, high pitched whine. “Your mother would've known what to do,” Chloe said softly.

There was a very heavy pause. “Pardon?” Emma finally asked.

“She wouldn't have taken this lying down. Marinette never took shit from anybody unless she already had a plan to throw it back in their faces later. And when she and Alya teamed up on something…” Chloe sighed. “I can't believe Alya’s gotten as far as she has without her.”

“You could do something?” Dani suggested hesitantly.

Chloe scoffed, but before she could say anything the countdown started. Dani glanced across the dance floor, at her grandparents. They’d stopped dancing and were now simply standing, arm in arm. As the Parisians assembled forced themselves to cheer, as the past year died and a new one began, Gabriel Agreste leaned down and kissed his wife’s forehead. Even from across the hall, a hall crowded with people and their emotional signatures, Dani could feel them. They were a small flame of hope, flickering wildly but never quite going out.

 

* * *

 

The limo got them back to the mansion with about twenty minutes to spare. As they entered, they could hear the sounds of a news report coming from the television in one of the nearby rooms. Immediately, Emma and Louis turned to Dani.

“Is someone in the house?” Emma asked.

“Yeah,” Dani said. “Don’t ask me why. It’s fine, though.” She headed to the room and, after a brief and confused pause, her siblings followed.

“What are you two doing here?” Dani asked her uncles as she entered the room.

Jonathan looked over from his spot on the couch. Ferd remained leaning on his shoulder with his eyes closed. “Babysitting,” Jonathan said.

“We don't need a babysitter,” Louis said, annoyed.

Jonathan yawned. “Yeah, no kidding,” he said. “Adele was worried someone from the Order might happen to stop by while you're out on your little mission later, so she wanted us to be on hand to stall if necessary. Babysitting is the cover story.”

“Oh,” Dani said. “I guess that makes sense.”

“How can you stall if you're asleep?” Emma asked dryly.

“I'm awake,” Ferd mumbled, not opening his eyes.

“It's not even twelve-thirty,” Louis said.

“Getting old isn't pretty, kids,” Ferd mumbled.

Jonathan looked down at his husband. “You're pretty,” he said.

Ferd snorted, his eyes still closed. “Nerd,” he said.

Jonathan looked back at the kids. “So, how are Paris’ elite?”

Dani shrugged and flopped down on an adjacent couch. “Same as everybody else,” she said. “Really fucking depressed about the new year. Did the Resistance blow anything up yet? Aunt Alya said she was going to set up a distraction to draw the Order’s focus, just in case.”

“Not yet,” her uncle replied, as Emma and Louis sat down next to their sister.

Alya’s distraction came through about ten minutes later. For a full minute everyone stared at the report in shocked silence for a moment, and then Dani let out a whoop. “Yes! Go, Manon!”

At Dani’s excited shout, Uncle Ferd sat up, suddenly alert. “What happened?”

“Our old babysitter blew up a tank,” Emma said.

“ _Two_ tanks!” Dani corrected gleefully.

Louis leaned forward as he studied the footage of Manon’s escape. “Her energy’s something else,” he said. “I guess I noticed it when we were kids, but now that I can read it clearly… I mean, it's kind of stunning. She's not Miraculous compatible, but I bet she'd make a fantastic Champion.”

Dani rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I just bet she would,” she said, annoyed.

Louis frowned and turned to her. “What's that supposed to-” he caught sight of his uncle’s expression. “Oh.”

Jonathan’s emotional state, whenever this kind of thing came up, was always something of a mystery to Dani. He certainly felt ashamed, albeit not as much as Dani would have liked. But he was also determined not to show it, and Dani couldn't for the life of her figure out why. “Sorry,” he muttered, as though he were apologizing for using up the last roll of paper towels without replacing it.

Louis looked back at the news report. “Isn't she, like, a lot younger than Mom?”

“By eight years, yeah,” Emma said.

“So… back then, that would have made her…” Louis looked at his uncle. “Jesus, dude.”

Jonathan closed his eyes. “Look, in my defense…” He paused before opening his eyes. “She was _really_ good. Top five, easy. I mean, she got incredibly close. She was way more competent and focused than basically any adult I akumatized.”

“I’ll,” Ferd yawned, “try not to take that personally.”

Rolling her eyes, Dani turned to Louis. “Time?”

“Five minutes,” he replied. “We should get ready to go.”

 

* * *

 

“Second drawer on the right,” Emma said to Louis, as they materialized in the office and Dani let go of the breath she was holding.

“Wow, this lock is embarrassing,” Louis said, almost smugly, as he pulled out his picks and got to work.

“Well, we did circumvent over a dozen defenses getting here,” Emma pointed out, hovering over Louis impatiently. “I suppose they didn’t think anyone would get this far and they didn’t need to worry about secure locks.” Louis popped the drawer open, but Emma snatched the manilla envelope before he could grab it and quickly shook out its contents. She flipped through the pages, her eyes rapidly scanning each one.

“Well?” Dani asked. Emma continued to flip silently, and nothing in her expression changed when she reached the last page but it didn’t matter, not to Dani.

Sometimes Dani really hated being an empath.

“It’s not them,” Emma said softly. She closed her eyes for a second, and Dani could feel her sister shoving every single emotion she had down deep, deep inside of herself. Dani could still feel them there, but Emma couldn’t.

“Are you sure?” Louis asked. He looked back in the drawer, but it was now empty.

“Yes. The names-”

“But their names wouldn’t be on it,” Louis interrupted. “They don’t know who Mom and Dad are.” Denial. Rising panic. The sensation of a life preserver being thrown just out of reach.

“Well, Elizabeth Renaud’s name isn’t on here, either,” Emma said. “And this location isn’t _in_ the Bay, it’s just near it. Besides, I do recognize one or two of these names. They’re people that were sent to prison camps before Aunt Alya could organize a rescue. This is just a prison camp. It’s not where they’re holding the superheroes.” With a heavy sigh, Emma laid the pages on the desk and pulled out the camera Aunt Alya had given them.

Wordlessly, and without realizing she was doing it, Dani’s hand cast about and closed around a small glass paperweight on the desk. The movement caught in the corner of Emma’s vision and she glanced over. In the blink of an eye, Emma was right in front of Dani, grabbing the fragile item out of her grasp. “Grow up,” Emma snapped, before putting the paperweight back down on the desk. “Break whatever the hell you want at home, but right now we have a mission to complete, and the clock’s ticking.”

“We already failed the mission,” Dani said.

“No, we didn’t. The mission is to get the information from that envelope back to Aunt Alya. The mission doesn’t change just because it’s not the information you want it to be.” She transported back to the pages on the desk and began photographing each one without another word.

 

* * *

 

Alya looked through the information they’d gotten for a few minutes, and to Dani’s surprise she wasn’t nearly as upset as they were. “I know you kids are disappointed,” Alya said. “I am, too. But this… this is still really good.”

“It is?” Dani asked, confused. “But it's just a prison camp.”

“Not just any prison camp,” Alya said. “It's the camp where they're holding all of France’s highest ranking military and intelligence personnel. If we liberated it, if we got these people into the Resistance…” Alya tapped her fingers against the desk. “It might be just what we need to retake the city.”

The relief that Alya felt at this prospect, at the idea of being able to hand the Resistance over to people who were actually trained to lead it, to turn it into something far more effective than it currently was, flooded Dani’s mind. She could hardly blame her aunt, but it annoyed her all the same.

“So we’re giving up on getting Mom and Dad back first,” Dani said.

Alya sighed. “We have less than three weeks of safe teleportation left. We don't have time to find them,” she said. “I wish we did, but we don't. Believe me, I don't like the idea of doing this without them any more than you do. And I know it's probably scary, being the only superheroes for a task like this, but-”

“They don't have to be,” Jonathan interrupted. Everyone turned to look at him. “The only superheroes, that is. We could recruit more. Or, well, Louis could.”

Now every head in the room turned to Louis. “He's right,” Louis said. “I could give out two more Miraculouses. I've already identified someone compatible with the Bee, and the Fox-”

“What? No,” Jonathan interrupted, “that is not what I meant at all. I am not talking about going from three minor Miraculouses to four or five.” He looked around the room at the blank stares and sighed. “Once again, I find myself in the enviable position of being simultaneously the worst person imaginable to make a point and, apparently, the only one willing to make it.”

On the other side of the room, Gabriel rolled his eyes. “I don't suppose you'd care to skip the rest of your monologue and simply make your point, would you?”

Jonathan glared at him for a second before turning back to the rest of the room. “We have to do this without Adrien and Marinette,” he said, “which sucks. But we don't have to do this without Ladybug and Chat Noir.”

Emma frowned, confused. “Mom and Dad _are_ Ladybug and Chat Noir,” she said.

“Are they?” Jonathan looked straight at Louis as he asked this.

“Well…” Louis hesitated. “No,” he said slowly, “technically not right now, they're not. Their Miraculouses are dormant.”

“So you could give them to other people,” Jonathan said. “Who could then help you take back Paris.” He held his hands up preemptively. “And I can tell exactly how much everyone in here _loves_ the idea of me having any kind of say in what happens to those Miraculouses, so I won't say another word about it. I've made my suggestion, you people can figure out what to do with it.” He leaned back in his chair as the three triplets exchanged a look.

“Is he right?” Emma finally asked Louis.

Louis frowned. “I… maybe. The major Miraculouses are harder to place. They’re less flexible and they _have_ to be given out as a pair, at the same time. It might take a while to find two people in Paris that would work. And they definitely wouldn’t be as good as Mom and Dad.”

“They just have to be better than nothing,” Emma said. “Right? Besides, whoever you find can give them back once we rescue Mom and Dad.”

Louis hesitated. “Miraculouses are fussy,” he said. “They don’t like going backwards, to previous owners. It’s not impossible, but… if I give Mom and Dad’s Miraculouses away, that might be it for them as superheroes.” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I hate the idea of taking that away from them,” he said, “but it’s irresponsible for me to not consider all our options.”

“You don’t have to decide right away,” Alya said. “We should liberate this camp first, as quickly as possible. After that-”

“After that,” Louis interrupted, his tone suddenly much more decisive, “I’ll start scouting.”


	36. Prisoner Oh-Three-Eight

Seven reached over and grabbed One right before she walked over the edge of a cliff. “And that's you dead,” she said, in an irreverent singsong that did little to mask her disappointment.

One opened her eyes and looked down. “Damn,” she muttered. She glanced quickly behind them and made sure the guards hadn't noticed anything. They were escorting One and Seven down to the dock for cleaning duty but were lagging far behind, uninterested in the prisoners’ conversation. One was using the opportunity to practice making her way from the prison to the boat in pitch-black darkness. “Well, if the guards weren't around I wouldn't have to walk so fast, I could-”

“Nope,” Seven interrupted, as they started to make their way down the treacherous path to the dock. “You have ten minutes to get from the prison to the boat once we break you out. This is how fast you have to move and you know it. You're not ready.”

“I am never going to be more ready,” One muttered. “Postponing at this stage is idiotic.”

“What is the point of busting you out if you're just going to break your neck a hundred meters from the walls?”

One kicked a rock over the side of the path as they made their way down. It sailed over the side, bouncing violently against the cliff edges below them. She sighed. “We’ve been here too long as it is,” One said.

Seven ruffled her hair. “You think all kids your age are impatient, or just you?”

One pushed Seven’s hand away but smiled despite herself. Not for the first time, she wondered if Seven had a little sister back in her old life. She was only six or so years older than One, as far as anybody could tell. It wasn't impossible that she had a sister One’s age, and she seemed more comfortable teasing One than any of the other prisoners.

They'd never find out if they didn't put the escape plan into action, that was for sure.

 

* * *

 

Oh-Two-Three leaned casually against the fence separating the two courtyards and waited patiently.

“Yes?”

Three glanced to her left, at the man leaning up against the opposite side of the fence. He’d annoyed her at first, with his insistence on leaders and separation, and his obvious irritation whenever any of the prisoners tried to make the most of their horrifying situation. But as the months had passed, as the days grew colder and shorter, as progress on the escape plan slowed to a crawl, Three found she had a recent appreciation for Five-Two-One’s attitude.

“The radio,” she began. Five-Two-One rolled his eyes preemptively.

“You’re the third leader this week to bother me about that,” he said, annoyed. “We’re still listening to it daily, and the patrol still hasn’t changed. When it does, I promise I will let you and all the other leaders know.”

“It’s not that,” Three said gently. “I wanted to ask about your hacker, the one who tuned it to the guards’ walkie talking frequency.”

“Oh. What about him?”

“Do you think… if I got ahold of a flashlight, could he modify it so that it gave off almost no light at all?”

Five-Two-One frowned. “You want a useless flashlight? For what?”

Three glanced over at the guards, seated near the entrance back into the building and paying virtually no attention to the prisoners in the courtyard whatsoever. God, they were so terrible at their jobs. It was almost embarrassing the escape was taking as long as it was. “We’re getting Oh-One-One off the island,” she said, dropping her voice to a near whisper just in case.

Five-Two-One’s eyes doubled in size. “How?”

Three raised an eyebrow. “I thought you wanted all the groups acting as independently as possible?” He glared. “We’ve figured out how to pick the cell locks. We know how to avoid the nightly patrols, thanks to you and your hacker. Seven’s almost frighteningly confident she’s found a weakness in the alarm system, so we can get outside. And if One manages to get down to the docks, the supply boats all have a removable panel covering the electrical wiring, and we think she’ll be able to fit inside without electrocuting herself. The _only_ problem we have left is getting her down to the dock without breaking her neck walking off the cliff in the pitch black. Obviously a regular flashlight will give off far too much light, she’ll be spotted right away. It needs to be just strong enough to keep her from killing herself, and no stronger. Understand?”

The leader of the Fives nodded slowly. “I’ll ask,” he said. “You don’t have the flashlight yet, though?” Three shook her head. “How will you get one?”

Three sighed. “I wish I knew.”

 

* * *

 

“Tell me again.”

Oh-One-One rolled her eyes, in perfect embodiment of a sulking preteen, and recited to Oh-Two-Three (for the third time that _day_ ) the patrol route of the guards after lights-out. Perfectly, again, for the third time that day.

“Good,” Three said. “And which window isn’t hooked up to the alarm system properly?”

“Third from the left of the main door,” One said curtly. “Three, you know I know all this already. You’re just drilling me to avoid thinking about the _actual_ flaw in the plan.”

Three sighed. “You’re right,” she admitted. “I’m sorry, you’ve been doing a wonderful job with all this, I don’t mean to make you feel… I’m sorry.”

One softened. “It’s fine,” she mumbled. “I like tests anyway.” She hugged her knees and looked up at the sky, gray and darkening far too soon in the day for One’s taste, as Three turned to the third person seated with them on the grass of the courtyard.

“What do you think?” Three asked Eight. “Do you think you could get your hands on what we need?” Eight didn’t answer. Her expression was distant, her giant sky-blue eyes turned towards the other half of the yard, where the Fives were still gathered. “Eight?” Three repeated.

“He hasn’t been at breakfast for six days in a row,” Eight said softly, not looking at her companions. “They’ve never thrown him in solitary this long before. What if…” she gulped. “What if they finally decided he’s more trouble than he’s worth?”

Three sighed, then snapped her fingers loudly right in front of Eight’s nose. Eight jumped slightly and looked at her, startled. “Eight. I know you’re worried. I understand, I do.” She took Eight’s hand in hers gently. “But right now I need you _here_ , focused and present, okay?”

Slowly, Eight nodded. “I’m sorry,” she said. Three patted her hand. Not for the first time, it occurred to Eight that back on the outside, where Three had been a doctor, she must have had an amazing bedside manner.

“Do you think,” Three repeated slowly, “you could get your hands on a flashlight?”

Eight frowned and considered the question for a while. “They don’t carry them until after we’re all locked in our cells for the night,” she finally said. “When would I have the opportunity to grab one?”

“Could you get it through the bars as they walk by on patrol?” Three suggested.

“I doubt it,” Eight replied. “They never pass that close, and if they saw me up against the bars they’d yell at me to get back into bed before coming anywhere near.”

“Technically,” One said, “we’ve already solved the problem of being locked in our cells at night.”

“ _No_ ,” Three said immediately. “Eight is not breaking out just to steal a flashlight, it’s too risky. Nobody’s leaving their cell after hours until the night of the escape. We can’t risk the guards realizing we can pick the lock.”

“We don’t have a choice,” One said. “Everything we do now is going to be risky. If we don’t take risks, we’ll be stuck here forever.”

Eight shook her head. “It wouldn’t help anyway,” she said. “I’m a pickpocket, not a ninja. Grabbing something off someone as you walk by, when they expect you to walk by and aren’t thinking about it, that’s easy. But trying to sneak up on someone in the dark without them realizing I’m there at all, that’s pushing my luck too far.” She paused. “What about a blackout? They’d have to use them in the middle of the day for one of those, with all the windowless rooms inside.”

“Maybe.” Three leaned on her hand and tapped an index finger against her jaw. “I can’t begin to imagine how we’d cause one, but maybe Seven-” Three was cut off as the door on the other side of the courtyard opened with a loud, rusty creak. All the prisoners looked towards it as Five-Three-Six was unceremoniously shoved through before the door was closed by whatever guard had escorted him. He blinked, as though the light bothered him, before looking around and locking eyes with Eight.

“Oh!” she gasped, her voice catching, before she scrambled up and ran as fast as she could for the fence. Three and One watched her go.

“Well,” One finally said wryly, “that’s the end of her being useful for the rest of the day.”

“Yeah,” Three agreed. “I suppose you’re right.” She looked around and spotted Seven near the entrance. “Come on, let’s go ask Seven if she has any ideas about cutting power to the lights.”

 

* * *

 

Eight didn’t slow down as she reached the fence, colliding with it and grabbing at it with a loud clatter. Exhaling, Six smiled at her. It wasn’t his usual smile, dizzyingly bright sunlight incarnate. It was hesitant, weak.

“Hey,” Six said softly.

“I was so _worried_!” Eight exclaimed, obviously fighting tears. “What _happened_?”

“Oh, um,” Six ran a hand through his blonde hair, messy and in need of a trim, like everybody else’s. “Nothing, I just, uh, this guard was pushing Five around and it just, uh, I guess it got to me.” He blinked, squeezing his eyes shut tightly for a moment, as though he were having difficulty focusing. “I, uh, I’m sorry you worried, if I’d known they’d put me away that long I would have… I would have…” he sighed. “Honestly, I probably would have punched the guard harder.”

“Oh, Six,” Eight sighed. “Are you okay?”

For a moment, Six looked like he was trying to say yes, but he quickly gave up. “No. No, I’m not okay,” he said, his voice rising. “Are you okay? Is _any_ of this okay?”

“I-no, of course it isn’t,” Eight replied, her voice small. Six deflated.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to snap at you,” he said. “I just-thinking of you being here, it makes me a little crazy, you know?”

Eight nodded, but she was still too worried to really consider the implications of what Six had just said. “I’m not okay either,” she repeated gently, “but I’m less not okay when I’m with you.”

Six smiled again, but he still seemed preoccupied. “Eight,” he started. “Listen, I-” he took a deep breath. “I’ve been thinking. There’s something… there’s something I need to tell you.”

“Oh?” Eight waited, but Six didn’t continue. “You can tell me anything,” she added.

“I know, I just-I wasn’t sure at first, if it was fair or not, I wasn’t sure if I should because I’m not sure of anything, you know?” Eight nodded. “But I’ve, uh, had a lot of time to think this past week,” he smiled wryly, but Eight didn’t smile back, “and, uh, I should just say it, right?”

“Of course.” Eight pressed her palm flat against the fence. Six pressed his own against hers and looked at their hands, together and not together, for a moment. They could feel one another through the links of the fence, feel the heat of each other’s hands, but the cold metal of the fence dug into their palms all the same. Six frowned. “Six?” Eight said gently. “What do you need to tell me?”

“I changed my mind,” Six said, still staring at the fence between their hands. “I’m not telling you like this. I’m hopping the fence first.”

For a moment, Eight was sure she’d misheard him. “ _What_? Are you crazy?”

Six looked up at the top of the fence and shrugged. “Sure, why not? It’ll be easy, it’s only three meters high.” He squinted. “Okay, maybe a little more, but-”

“Putting aside for the moment,” Eight interrupted, trying to keep her voice down, “that you think getting over the fence faster than the guards can catch you will be _easy_ , why? You just got out of a week of solitary! Can’t you keep your goddamn head down for a _second_? Besides, what’s the point? You’re just as much of a prisoner on this side of the fence as that one, trust me.”

“The _point_ ,” Six said, “is they stole everything from us. Everything. Our memories, our freedom, our lives. And we’re probably going to die in this hell without ever knowing why. So before that happens,” he took a deep breath and looked Eight straight in the eyes, his green ones suddenly brighter and more focused than Eight had ever seen them, “before that happens I am making one happy memory, just one happy memory that they can’t take away from me.”

Before Eight could reply, Six backed up about ten steps and then ran for the fence. Eyes wide, Eight backed away as Six jumped. He was at the top of the fence in the blink of an eye, perched and looking like he’d never been more at home anywhere else. He’d been almost impossibly silent, too. Eight glanced nervously at the guards but unbelievably none of them had noticed. Another second later and Six had landed in front of her, again impossibly silently. Eight was sure jumping from that height should have been dangerous, but Six landed in an easy, natural crouch.

“Wow,” Eight said, “that was-”

“Oh-Three-Eight,” Six interrupted, standing and taking her hand as he closed the distance between them and looked down at her, “I don’t have any idea who you are, but whoever you are I’m in love with you. I've been in love with you since the day I saw you, when you stood up to that guard armed with nothing but a scowl. You’re brave and kind and beautiful, and when I’m with you it’s almost like I remember what home is. And I know that's crazy, and I don’t expect you to do or say anything in response. I just wanted to tell you that once. And I wanted to tell you face to face, no fence between us.”

“Oh,” Eight sighed, her voice breaking slightly, “oh, Six, you gorgeous idiot, did you really think there was any chance in the world I wasn’t in love with you, too?” Six’s face split into a wide grin-and it was his old grin again, that lopsided, mischievous grin that had captured Eight’s heart months earlier. “You’re the most-”

“Hey!”

Eight scowled as the guards finally noticed Six was on the wrong side of the fence. “Oh, hell,” she muttered. Without another moment of hesitation, before Six even realized what she was doing, Eight grabbed his face and pulled Six down to her, kissing him fiercely. A moment later he was kissing her back and wrapping his arms tightly around her. For the first time Eight could ever remember, she truly felt safe.

This illusion was interrupted almost immediately, of course, but it was nice while it lasted.

Nearly every prisoner in the courtyard was either cheering, whistling or clapping by the time the pack of guards reached them and pulled them apart, dragging them towards the doors. The two said nothing, but their eyes stayed locked until the last possible second, and in their shared look they communicated volumes.

The two prisoners were taken back to their respective cells and thrown in unceremoniously. About twenty minutes later, the rest of the prisoners were sent back as well, their time outside cut short due to the incident.

“You know,” Seven said, grinning as she entered their cell, “I know I only have, what, four months of memories? But I'd still bet good money that was just about the most romantic thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life.” Her cellmate was lying on the bottom bunk, staring up, a look of total shock on her face. “Oh, come on Eight,” Seven said. “Don’t be like that, everyone loved it, it’s the best thing that’s happened since we woke up here. I’m sure your boyfriend will be fine, don’t worry about it.”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” her cellmate whispered back. Seven’s jaw dropped.

“Are you kidding?” she asked incredulously. “Look, Eight, I’ve put up with your whole he’s-not-my-boyfriend nonsense for this long because you insisted it didn’t count if you couldn’t touch, but after what I just saw? After the guy literally hopped a fence just to make out with you? I’m sorry, Eight, but he is absolutely your boyfriend now. Sorry, I don’t make the rules, that’s just how it is.”

“That’s not what I meant. He’s not my boyfriend. He’s my husband.”

Seven blinked, confused. “What?”

Marinette Dupain-Cheng sat up, took a deep breath, and looked her cellmate straight in the eye. “I remember everything,” she said.


	37. Marinette Dupain-Cheng

“I remember everything.”

Marinette almost couldn’t believe she was saying those words, not after four months of desperately longing for it to be true to no avail. She half expected Seven to scoff skeptically, to roll her eyes and accuse her of joking. But of course she didn’t-Marinette could see from her cellmate’s face that Seven believed her both immediately and unconditionally. Nobody in that place would have ever joked about their memories, after all.

Slowly, Seven sat down next to Marinette on the bottom bunk. She stared at Marinette wordlessly for what felt like ages. “How?” Seven finally whispered.

“The kiss,” Marinette explained. “It must have broken the memory spell.” Marinette was still stunned herself, and staring at the middle distance. She missed the light of hope that came into Seven’s eyes, and was completely caught off guard when Seven responded by leaning over and stealing a kiss of her own. Marinette’s brain caught up to what was happening a few seconds later and she pulled away. “Gah! What the hell, Seven?”

“Ugh, it didn't work,” Seven said, annoyed. She frowned. “Do you think it's like a tongue thing, or-”

“It's a true love thing!” Marinette snapped. “It doesn't work on just any random person!”

“I'm just a random person to you?” Seven asked, pouting. “That hurts, Eight.” Her eyes lit up. “Wait-what's your real name?”

“Marinette.”

Seven grinned. “Marinette,” she repeated. “God, does it feel good to say someone's name. Marinette, Marinette. Oh, it's pretty, too, isn't it? What about your boyfriend? Sorry, I mean your _husband_?”

“Adrien,” Marinette said with a sigh.

“And…” Seven hesitated a little, not sure if the answer to her next question would be a happy one or not, “the baby? You remember the baby, too?” Marinette nodded, and her eyes watered. “Boy or a girl?”

“It’s, um,” Marinette took a breath to steady herself, “two girls and a boy, actually. Triplets.”

Seven’s jaw dropped. “Wow,” she said. “How old are they?”

“Thirteen.” A second passed, and then Marinette covered her mouth in horror as a few tears escaped her eyes. “Oh, God, they're fourteen now,” she whispered. “I missed it. They've been fourteen for _months_. That's-that's the last thing I remember, going to bed after setting everything up for their birthday the next day. But I woke up here instead.”

Seven’s face fell slightly. “ _That’s_ the last thing you remember?” she asked. “Not… not getting captured on, like, a spy mission, or fighting some-”

“No. I don't remember anything that would explain what's going on here,” Marinette said. “Everything was perfectly normal.”

Now Seven looked almost devastated. “So even after getting your memories back, you still have _no_ idea what we're all doing here?”

“Oh.” Marinette wiped the tears off her face. “Well. I don't know who took us, but I have a pretty good idea why they'd take me and Adrien. We’re, um, superheroes.”

For a moment Seven was speechless, and then a huge grin split across her face. “No fucking way,” she said gleefully.

 

* * *

 

The prison was put on lockdown for the rest of the day, with all prisoners confined to their cells. Marinette spent that time telling Seven everything she could remember about her life. At first all Seven wanted to hear about was her escapades as Ladybug-and there certainly were plenty of those to share-but eventually, the only thing Marinette would talk about was her family, in all its domestic normalcy.

She made it about ten hours before completely breaking down which, all things considered, was pretty good.

“... and Adrien was so proud, you know,” Marinette was telling Seven, “he’d always liked physics, but watching Emma win that competition, and after she’d been pushed into competing against the next grade up? But she doesn’t really like it when we fuss over her, so instead Adrien just went out and bought, oh, about twenty T-shirts, all with different science puns on them, just for her. And Emma’s not really the most expressive kid, but she _adored_ them, she never stops wearing them. Anybody who still had trouble telling her and Dani apart, after that they… they…”

Seven put an arm around Marinette as the woman burst into hysterical tears and buried her face in Seven’s shoulder, desperately trying to muffle her cries. She needn’t have bothered, of course-hysterical sobbing in the middle of the night was not exactly a foreign sound in that place, and it never caught the attention of the patrol.

“Shhh,” Seven said gently, tightening her embrace and rocking slightly back and forth. “It’s okay, it’s okay.” It wasn’t, obviously, but Seven said it anyway.

“I… I…” Marinette was having difficulty keeping her voice at a whisper while sobbing, “I forgot them! I forgot my _babies_!”

“Oh, Eight,” Seven said, which only made Marinette cry harder. “I mean-shit, Marinette. Sorry.” Seven had been repressing a decent amount of jealousy up to this point, and doing a good job of hiding it for the sake of her friend. But now she felt that piece of herself gently crumble into nothingness, like dust. Seven still desperately wanted her own memories back, of course, but seeing what Eight’s were doing to her, it was now impossible to feel truly envious.

 

* * *

 

It wasn't until the next morning that Marinette got a chance to tell the rest of their group. She and Seven agreed ahead of time not to say anything until they were sitting down and the guards were a safe distance away, but Seven was practically bouncing up and down with excitement as they walked the halls.

“Hey, Eight,” Oh-Two-Four said as they reached the table, “next time you and Five-Three-Six decide to put on a show for all of us, give a girl a heads up, would you? I missed everything before the guards-”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, hilarious, shut up,” Seven interrupted impatiently as she sat down.

Four raised an eyebrow. “ _Excuse_ -”

“Eight has something to tell everyone.” Seven looked at her cellmate excitedly.

Marinette took a deep breath. “I got my memories back,” she said softly. The table instantly went dead silent. “When Adrien-that is, when Six and I kissed, it broke our memory spells.”

“But it only works for them,” Seven interrupted, “because they’re married or whatever, so don't bother kissing Eight, I already tried that.”

“Yes,” Marinette said dryly, “if we could keep the sexual assault to a minimum, I would appreciate that.”

Three frowned. “Five-Three-Six has his memories back, too? Are you sure?”

“I…” It hadn’t occurred to Marinette that he might not. “Why wouldn’t he?”

“I don’t know,” Three said, “I have no idea how it works. But it’s dangerous to jump to conclusions, so-”

“ _WHAT_?”

Every head in the place turned to the Fives’ table, where Five-Two-One had just shouted in disbelief at the top of his lungs. Next to him, Adrien looked across the room at Marinette and shot her a sheepish, apologetic look. There was a long silence.

“Okay,” Three said slowly, “nevermind, that seems like a pretty safe conclusion to jump to after all.” She sighed. “He’s your husband, then?” Marinette nodded.

“They have _triplets_ ,” Seven added excitedly.

“Would you let her tell it?” One snapped, annoyed. She looked at Marinette. “So… what, the spell was broken with True Love’s Kiss?” One asked sarcastically. “That’s a thing? That actually works?”

“Apparently,” Marinette said. “We’ve used it before, actually.”

“You two deal with spells a lot, then?” Three asked.

Marinette shrugged. “Yeah, I guess you could say that. We’re superheroes.” All jaws around the table dropped, except for Seven’s, who grinned excitedly.

“Do you guys realize what this means?” she asked. “Maybe that’s why we’re _all_ here. Maybe we’re all superheroes!”

Four raised her eyebrows. “And that's a _good_ thing?” she asked. “Look around, Seven. There must be almost a hundred prisoners on this island. Think about how uncommon superheroes are, and how diverse everyone is. This could be every superhero in all of _Europe_ , all trapped and powerless on this island. I doubt whoever orchestrated it is just holding us here for fun. No, they needed us out of the way of something. Do you have any idea what things must look like on the mainland?”

There was a moment of silence as everyone at the table considered this line of reasoning.

“Well,” Three said, “At least now we know. And once we get One off the island-”

“Woah, woah, woah,” One interrupted. “Are you crazy? If anyone’s getting out of here now, it’s Eight.”

“Absolutely not,” Marinette said, indignant. “We agreed that the fairest thing-”

“Oh, screw what’s fair,” One said impatiently. “That was when we were all in the same dumb amnesia boat. Now you _remember who you are_. You have a much better chance than I do to make it back to people who can hide you, help you. You can become a superhero again, and then you can come back _here_ and free all of us. Sending you gives us the best chance of _all of us_ making it home eventually.”

“She’s right,” Seven said. “Now that you remember, it has to be you.”

Marinette shook her head. “No,” she said, looking at One. “You… you're about the same age as my kids, you know that? If one of them was trapped in a nightmare like this, and they got a chance to escape but some woman my own age took it instead? I could never forgive that.”

One looked at her for a moment, blinking, her expression neutral. Then, before Marinette had a chance to react, she lunged forward over the table and slapped Marinette across the face as hard as she could. The loud crack of it echoed in the open hall, and once again every head in the place turned, this time towards their own table. A few of the closer guards straightened, but when Marinette made no motion to retaliate they lost interest. One waited until she was sure the guards wouldn't investigate, and then she turned back to a stunned Marinette.

“Snap the fuck out of it,” One hissed under her breath. “I am not your goddamn baby girl, so stop looking at me like I am.”

“You're _someone’s_ -”

“You think I'm the only someone’s daughter in Europe? Look around, Eight. The stakes here are _way_ higher than you or me. You have to do what's right for an entire continent’s worth of kids. You must get that, if you really are a superhero.”

“I have _never_ had to sacrifice a child to do the right thing,” Marinette said indignantly. “I’ve always found a way-”

“I'm not a child,” One interrupted. “I’m… I’m a superhero. Just like you. You let other superheroes risk themselves for the greater good, don't you?”

Three sighed. “We don't know for sure that the rest of us are-”

“I know I am,” One insisted. “I'm positive. It's the first thing I've been sure of since waking up in this hell, so don't you dare try to take it away from me.”

 

* * *

 

“Oh my God,” Seven said as they entered the courtyard, “we’re overlapping with the Fives _again_ , they’re already over there on the other side. What are the odds?” She paused as she looked at the top of the fence. “That sure is a lot of barbed wire up there,” she said conversationally. “I guess the guards were busy while they had us all locked in.”

“Guess so,” Three said. She looked at Marinette. “Stay here,” she said.

“But-”

“I need to talk to Five-Two-One before anything else, and we don’t want to draw attention by all going over there at once.” She placed a hand on Marinette’s shoulder. “You’ll talk to your husband before we have to go back in, I promise. Wait for my signal.”

Marinette sighed. “Fine,” she agreed, before walking away and sitting at the bench furthest from the fence. Three walked up to the fence, where Five-Two-One was already waiting.

“So,” he said.

“So,” Three agreed, leaning against the spot next to her fellow leader.

“Superheroes.”

“Apparently.” Three looked around the yard. “How long before the guards figure out we know?”

Five-Two-One shrugged. “They don’t seem to pick up on much, do they?”

“Our plan’s changed,” Three told him. “We’re breaking Eight out.”

“Good. Still need that flashlight?”

“Yeah. We have to move fast, if the guards find out Eight has her memories back before we get her out, who knows what they’ll do. It could jeopardize the whole plan. A blackout might take too long to arrange.”

“I’ll have the other Fives brainstorm it.” Five-Two-One motioned at Adrien. Once he started walking over, Marinette came as well, not waiting for Three’s signal. Three kept an eye on the guards as the two reached the fence. They were watching closely now, no surprise after yesterday’s incident, but they still didn’t seem inclined to come over, or even get up from their stations.

“Hey, bugaboo,” Adrien said softly, pressing his fingertips to the fence.

Marinette laughed a little as a few tears escaped her eyes. “Hey, kitty,” she said, touching her hand to his.

“The Zeros have a plan for breaking your wife out,” Five-Two-One told Adrien. “Almost, anyway.”

Adrien’s eyes lit up. “Really?”

“But it doesn’t have to be me,” Marinette said in a rush. “You could go.”

“What? No, of course it has to be you,” Adrien replied immediately.

“Agreed,” Three said, annoyed. “We came up with the plan, one of us should get to be the one who gets out. Why are you fighting this so much, Eight?”

“It’s not _fair_ ,” Marinette protested. “Adrien, you always sacrifice yourself for me and I always let you, but this is-”

“Marinette,” Adrien interrupted. “Obviously it has to be you. You have _supernatural_ luck, you’re much more likely to get out than I am.”

“We don’t know for a fact that I still have that,” Marinette protested. “I don’t have my earrings anymore.”

Adrien raised an eyebrow. “Your multiple successful heists suggest you do,” he said. “Besides, I’ve still got my night vision and agility, and my mother still has her empathy thirty years later, I’m pretty sure-”

“Wait,” Three interrupted. She narrowed her eyes at Adrien. “You have night vision.”

“Um. Yes? It’s a cat-” he stopped explaining as Three rolled her eyes and lightly smacked Marinette upside the head.

“Ow! Why is everyone either hitting me or kissing me lately?”

“You didn’t think to mention that your husband has _night vision_? When seeing in the dark is the _one_ problem in the escape plan?” Three turned to Adrien. “If we get you two out of the prison tonight,” she said, “do you think you could get Eight down to the docks without falling off the cliff?”

“Easy,” Adrien said.

“How fast?”

Adrien shrugged. “Five minutes?”

“Perfect.” Three took a deep breath and let it out. “So… that’s it, then. We have everything we need. We’re breaking Eight out tonight.”

 

* * *

 

When Adrien was carrying her in his arms, the way he was now, and running as fast as he could, Marinette could almost believe they were back on the outside, on some mission together. That Adrien had just risked himself like he always did to get her safely out of the way of whatever threat they were easily handling. She closed her eyes, although it hardly made a difference in the middle of the night, and pressed herself against his chest.

They reached the path in no time, and now Adrien had to slow down somewhat as they descended the treacherous path. He continued to carry Marinette until they reached the dock.

“Where’s that electrical panel?” he asked in a whisper, letting her down.

“Front of the boat,” Marinette replied. Adrien climbed on board, then helped Marinette find her way in the dark. He led her to the front, and then Marinette heard him pull the panel off and set it aside.

“Tight fit,” he observed.

“I won’t be in it for long,” Marinette replied.

“Well…” Adrien hesitated. “I guess you’d better get in, then.”

Instead, Marinette threw her arms around her husband. “Oh, Adrien,” she whispered. “I hate this, I hate leaving you in this place. I feel like I just got you back, and now I’m losing you all over again.”

Adrien gently kissed her forehead. “You’re not losing me,” he promised. “You’ll be back in no time.” Marinette bit her lip. “You’re gonna get back to the kids and make sure they’re safe,” Adrien continued, “and then you’re gonna go to the Guardian with my parents and the four of you are going to do whatever it takes to figure this thing out. And then you’ll be back.”

Marinette nodded, then went up on her toes, put her hand behind her husband’s head, and kissed him. There were no guards around this time to rip them away from each other. This kiss was long, and it was desperate, and they were both crying before it was over. It was Adrien who finally pulled away.

“Let’s get you out of here,” he whispered.


	38. Emma

“What are you doing?” Emma asked, poking her head into the safe room.

Jonathan looked up. “You’re back,” he said, surprised. “That was fast, you just-” he glanced at the time on his phone. “Oh. Never mind, I just lost track of the time. How’d it go?”

Emma walked up to her uncle’s desk and sat on the edge of it, looking at his work. “Great,” she said. “Turns out locking up the Chief of Defense in a prison camp for months and then offering him the chance to help liberate it is a recipe for an _amazing_ Champion. He kind of took a lot out of Dani, actually. She’s sleeping it off now. And Louis wanted to get started on scouting for potential successors to Mom and Dad, so he’s out.” Emma leaned over. “What are you doing?” she repeated. “I thought you were sure you couldn’t get anything more out of working on the spell that grabbed Mom and Dad.”

“This is the other spell,” her uncle replied. “The barrier spell that’s keeping the rest of the world from coming to help.” He scowled at it. “How the hell are they still powering it over four months later?” He sighed. “I don’t know why I’m bothering, I have much less to work with than I did for the other spell. I’m not going to figure out where the power source is. I just… can’t think of anything else to do with myself after four months of this, I guess.” Jonathan closed his book and leaned back in his chair. “So when does the Resistance take back the city?”

Emma shrugged. “Everyone from the camp is still getting settled. I think Aunt Alya wants to start strategizing first thing tomorrow morning.” Jonathan nodded. “You want to be there?”

Jonathan hesitated. “Just remind her that I'm a magic consultant and she can call me if she needs one,” he said. “I don't want to oversell my usefulness here. I can maybe give some insight into dealing with magical defenses, but the Order is unpredictable. I never know when they're going to be brilliant and when they're going to be completely incompetent.”

Emma frowned. “How do you mean?”

“Well,” Jonathan gestured behind himself to the spell printouts taped to the wall, “these are a work of genius, and I'm not just saying that because I can't crack them. Original, ruthless, elegant, efficient. As horrifying as they are in application, they’re a masterpiece of spellcraft. But on the other hand, the Order seem totally incapable of predicting big picture level issues.”

“Like what?” Emma asked.

“For starters,” Jonathan said, “did they really think the people of Europe wouldn't resist, just because our militaries were caught off guard and we lost our superheroes? What, we were all going to just go along with living in a fascist regime that intentionally cut us off from the rest of the world?” Emma shrugged. “And that's another thing,” Jonathan continued, “the superheroes. The Order was completely blindsided by the superheroes that arose post-occupation. They clearly had no plan in place for dealing with them. In Paris the Order has only _just_ started figuring out how to fight you kids effectively, and it doesn't sound like they've been doing much better in other cities, either.”

“To be fair,” Emma said, “there's been almost thirty new ones in only a few months. It's unprecedented.”

“Unprecedented, yes, but it's still _predictable_. What did they think was going to happen when they took all the current superheroes out of circulation, that there just wouldn't be superheroes anymore? Magic abhors a vacuum, and for better or worse superheroes are currently a natural part of… I don't know, whatever the magical equivalent of an ecosystem is. You can't just get rid of them and not expect any backlash.”

Before Emma could think of a response, she heard her grandmother shouting her name. With a quick wave to her uncle, Emma hopped off the desk and rushed out of the room, following the sound of her grandmother’s voice. She eventually found both grandparents down the east wing, in the room containing all the main controls for the security system.

“What's wrong?”

Adele and Gabriel were both frowning at the feed of a security camera. “Maybe nothing,” Adele said cautiously. She pointed to the screen. “There's somebody at the country manor.”

Emma leaned forward, studying the footage. Now that she was looking closely, Emma recognized the front door. She didn't, however, recognize the middle-aged man standing in front of it, ringing the doorbell repeatedly and trying to look through the drawn curtains of the front windows.

“Is he Order?” Emma asked nervously.

“Unlikely,” her grandfather replied, scowling. “If the Order had traced the Resistance back to that address, we’d all be in custody right now. They wouldn't send a lone agent to walk right up to the front door and ring the bell.”

“Our best guess is that he got the address from someone you smuggled out of Paris,” Adele said.

“But we never let anyone know where the manor was,” Emma said. “I just teleported people in and out of the room in the basement.”

“Someone must have violated our _clearly stated_ protocol and left a cell phone on with GPS tracking,” Gabriel replied, his scowl deepening.

“He must need to get in touch with the Resistance,” Adele said. “It could be terribly important, Gabriel.”

“It couldn't be as important as the measures we take to ensure the children’s anonymity,” her husband replied angrily. “This idiot may very well be endangering the lives of Adrien’s children.”

“Well,” Adele said, “if that’s so, we’ll deal with it. It's already done. We might as well see what he wants.” She looked at Emma expectantly.

“Right,” Emma said, trying not to feel too apprehensive. “Rajji, feathers out.”

 

* * *

 

The man at the door had turned around and started to head back to his truck by the time Gabriel opened the door. “Can I help you?” Gabriel asked, his voice ice cold.

The man turned around, surprised. “Oh!” he said brightly. “Gosh, I could've sworn this place was abandoned. The lights are out, there’s no car, the-”

“If you thought there was no one here, why did you ring the doorbell?” Gabriel interrupted impatiently.

“Oh, just putting off disappointing the lady, I suppose,” the man said easily. “She seemed like she'd been through a lot, I wasn't really looking forward to waking her up and telling her-”

“What lady?”

“Well, I didn't ask her name and frankly I don't want to know it,” the man replied, his tone still friendly. “I'm not really looking to join the Resistance or anything, you understand? But when I run right into someone that needs my help, well,” he shrugged, “what else is a guy supposed to do?”

Gabriel glanced over at the man’s truck. Emma did her best to follow his gaze, but both her grandparents were blocking the doorway and keeping her behind them rather insistently, so she couldn't get a good look. “And this woman who needed your help, she asked you to bring her here?” Gabriel asked.

“Well at first she said Paris, but I told her getting in there would be impossible, what with the checkpoints and her obviously being an escapee from one of those resistance prison camps. I mean nobody's supposed to know where they are, of course, but I’d heard a rumor there's one somewhere near where I picked her up. Anyway I explained, so she asked if I couldn't bring her here, instead. And it was only an hour out of my way so I-”

“Would you mind trying that again?” Adele interrupted harshly, crossing her arms. “I'm very good at telling when people are lying to me, and I don't appreciate it.”

The man raised an eyebrow. “Okay, you caught me, it was more like five hours. But don't tell her that, I don't want her to feel like she’s a bother or anything, you know? Girl’s in rough shape, and I might not be Resistance material but I'm happy to help a patriot however I can. I was happy to drive her here, even if she did fall asleep five minutes after I picked her up.”

Gabriel sighed and turned to Adele, dropping his voice so the man couldn't overhear. “No deception?”

“No,” Adele replied. “But we’d still better find out if the woman told him anything else dangerous.” She looked back at the man and raised her voice. “Did this woman say anything else?” she asked him. “How she knew about this house, perhaps?”

The man looked confused. “She said it belonged to her mother-in-law,” he told Adele. “I assume that's you?”

For a second, all three Agrestes stared at the man in complete and utter shock. It was Emma who snapped out of it first, shoving forcefully past her grandparents and running for the parked truck as fast as she could.

After four months of teleportation, the ten seconds it took Emma to reach the passenger side door of the truck felt like an agonizing eternity. Every frantic footfall felt to Emma like she was taking it through molasses, and she could feel each quarter of second distinctly. Finally, finally she reached the door, colliding into it with a loud bang. Marinette’s eyes flew open as Emma flung the door open.

“Mom!”

There was a half-second of disorientation before Marinette woke up fully. “Emma! Oh, sweetheart!” Marinette threw her arms around her daughter and hugged her tightly. “You're safe? You're okay?”

Emma nodded. “Yeah,” she whispered, her voice breaking.

“And Dani? Louis?”

“We’re fine, everyone’s fine, we just-Oh, Mama, we missed you so much, we were so worried! We tried so hard to figure out where you were but we _couldn't_ , and-” Emma stopped mid-sentence, practically gulping air, trying desperately not to trip over her words through the tears.

“Shh, baby, it's okay,” Marinette said, pressing her daughter's head to her chest and stroking her hair gently. “It's all going to be okay now.”

Emma nodded, and took a few seconds to slow her breathing down to a normal rate. “Dad?” she finally asked, in a nervous whisper.

Her mother sighed. “He's alive,” she told Emma, who sighed in relief. “We couldn't both make it out, though.” Marinette glanced over towards the manor, where the man who’d picked her up was watching them, along with Emma’s grandparents. She looked back at Emma. “I'll tell you everything once we’re inside, okay?”

Nodding, Emma stepped back to allow her mother to exit the car. Marinette swayed as she stood, and Emma immediately put a supporting arm around her mother’s waist. “Sorry, sweetie,” Marinette said, leaning on her daughter. “I… the last few days have been rough, I guess they took more out of me than I realized.”

“It's okay,” Emma said, trying not to think about how light her mother felt as they both walked back to the manor.

 

* * *

 

The second they were all safely back in the manor, there was a high-pitched squeal of excitement and a small blue figure launching itself at Marinette, landing squarely on her nose. “You're back, you're back!”

“Rajji!” Emma snapped, annoyed.

Gabriel reached over and calmly pulled the kwami off his daughter-in-law’s face. “Rajji, we just got the woman back, it would be a shame if you suffocated her now,” he said dryly.

Marinette smiled. “It's alright,” she said. “It's nice to see you again, Rajji.” Rajji beamed at her from Gabriel’s grasp.

“Adrien?” Adele asked. “Is he-”

“He helped me escape,” Marinette said, leaning against the door. “Adele, Gabriel, I'm so sorry, if there’d been any way we could have both gotten out-”

“Oh!” Adele covered her mouth with her hand and she started crying. It took Emma a second to realize the tears were happy ones. “Our son is alive,” she whispered. “Gabriel, our son is _alive_.” Gabriel put an arm around his wife, and he didn't cry or even smile but the relief on his face was obvious.

“So if Rajji’s here,” Marinette said slowly, “I'm guessing you've all just come from Paris, and Dani and Louis are back there waiting?” She looked at Gabriel. “Why did you bring Emma?” she asked.

“Ah.” Gabriel glanced at his granddaughter, then looked back at Marinette. “I'm afraid it would be inaccurate to say that _I_ brought _Emma_.”

Marinette blinked in confusion for a moment, and then her expression fell as she looked at her daughter. “Oh,” she said softly. “I see.”

“I'm sorry,” Emma said immediately, without thinking. Marinette’s eyes widened.

“Oh, no, baby,” she said quickly, hugging Emma, “I’m sorry, that wasn't-I should have reacted better, don't think I'm disappointed, I couldn't be prouder, honest, I _did_ hope you'd get one, I just-oh, I wanted to keep you _safe_ first! Until you were an adult, not until after you'd had a normal childhood, that's all.”

Sighing, Emma hugged her mother back. “I understand,” she said. “But Dani and Louis might take it personally, so maybe get your disappointment out of your system first, before I take us all back.”

“Don't worry, sweetie, I can hide it,” Marinette told Emma.

“Um. Well, no, actually, you can't,” Emma said. “Not from Dani, anyway. Not anymore.”

There was a pause. “I think maybe I'd better sit down for a second,” Marinette finally said.

“You know, I would have brought them if I'd known it was _you_ ,” Emma said as her mother eased herself onto a nearby chair, “but the security camera only faced the door, so we didn't realize-and Dani’s exhausted from her last Champion, and Louis-” Emma gasped. “Shoot, Louis! I'd better-” she pulled her phone out of her pocket and frantically texted her brother.

“Don't say anything about-”

“No kidding,” Emma interrupted her grandmother impatiently. “I'm just telling him to come back to the mansion, that's all.” Emma noticed her mother's look of confusion. “The Order reads everything,” Emma explained. “We have a warded burner phone for communicating with the Resistance, but if we warded _our_ phones and the Order wasn't able to read our messages they'd get suspicious, so we just let them and don't send anything incriminating.”

Marinette nodded slowly. “And… and the Order is…?”

“Oh,” Emma said. “Right. They're, um, the guys who kidnapped all the superheroes. They're kind of, uh, running everything at the moment. Like… government-wise.”

“I see.” Marinette took a breath and let it out slowly. “What's your brother doing?”

“Uh. Well, actually, he's kind of out scouting for your replacement,” Emma said apologetically.

Marinette frowned. “Why?”

“We didn't exactly know you'd be breaking out, dear,” Adele said. “Things have gotten a bit more urgent lately, and we thought an inferior Ladybug might still be better than none at all.”

“No,” Marinette said slowly, “I mean why is _Louis_ out scouting?”

There was a moment of hesitation, and then Gabriel sighed. “Because managing the Miraculouses and selecting holders is now one of his many responsibilities,” he said.

Marinette closed her eyes and took another deep breath. “Where’s Fu?” she asked, her tone overly controlled.

“Nobody’s seen him,” Adele said, annoyed. “The kids found their boxes in your kitchen the day you and Adrien disappeared.”

“Unbelievable,” Marinette muttered. She opened her eyes and looked up at her daughter. “I can only imagine how much more there is to tell me,” she said, “but let's go home first, okay?”

 

* * *

 

“Dani!” Emma shook her sister roughly.

Still half asleep, Dani groaned and swatted her sister away. “Quit it,” she mumbled.

“Dani!”

Dani finally woke up enough to register her sister’s emotional state, and then she sat up immediately. “What? What is it?” She frowned at her sister. “Why are you transformed?”

Instead of answering, Emma grabbed her sister’s hand and teleported them both downstairs, to where their mother was waiting. Marinette jumped a little, but stayed seated on the couch. “Hi, Danielle,” she said. “I’m sorry, I’d get up, but since the escape I’ve been running on adrenaline for the past few days and it’s all kind of catching up to-” she stopped talking as Dani launched herself at her mother, hugging her and sobbing wordlessly. Marinette hugged Dani tightly and closed her eyes as she kissed her daughter’s forehead.

“How,” Dani finally managed to say, “How did you…”

Before Marinette could answer, they heard the front door open. “Guys?” Louis called from the foyer.

“In here!” Emma shouted.

“What’s going on?” he shouted back, his voice getting closer. “What’s so important that you-” Louis stopped talking abruptly as he entered the room and saw his mother.

“Hi, Louis,” Marinette said. For a long moment, Louis just stared at his mother, frozen, as though he were looking at a ghost. “Are you okay, sweetie?” she asked gently.

Slowly, Louis nodded. He walked towards her as Dani wiped the tears from her face and pulled away to give Louis space. He bent down and hugged his mother tightly.

“Oh, sweetheart,” Marinette murmured, kissing Louis’ cheek, “I missed you so much!”

“I missed you too, Mom,” Louis whispered back. He scrunched up his face and a few tears escaped his eyes. “And I’m really, _really_ sorry about this.”

Marinette frowned. “Sorry about-”

Before she could finish the question, Louis had touched his mother’s temple. Her eyes closed as she fell back onto the couch, unconscious.


	39. Louis

It was Dani who finally broke the stunned silence.

“Louis,” she said slowly, “what the _fuck_ did you just do?”

Louis took a step back from the couch, his eyes still on his now unconscious mother. His face was white, and his hands were shaking slightly. “I gotta-I gotta get my stuff, she’s all-Emma, can you move her to one of the guest rooms?”

“What did you _do_ , Louis?” Dani repeated angrily.

“There’s something wrong with her energy,” Louis said. “I need to fix it. And until I do, she really shouldn’t be awake.”

“Wrong how?” Emma asked, not moving. “Like a tracer or something? Like what was on Aunt Alya when we rescued her?”

“What? No, she's clean, she's just _sick_ ,” Louis said impatiently. “Emma, would you-”

“You couldn't wait _ten minutes_?” Dani demanded. “I didn't even get to say anything to her!”

“I. Don't. Know,” Louis said angrily. “I don't know if I could have safely waited ten minutes or not, and I really didn't feel like gambling with Mom’s life to find out. I have never seen _anything_ like this.”

“You are so-”

“Danielle,” her grandmother said, softly but firmly. “Let your brother do his work.”

Dani turned to her grandmother, and the two stared at one another for a few moments. Adele's gaze was sad, Dani’s enraged. Louis could tell they were reading one another. It was almost like a conversation, when their empathies interacted directly. After a few tense moments of silence, Dani let out a frustrated groan and stormed out of the room without another word.

Louis watched her go for a moment, then turned back to his other sister. “Emma, would you please-”

“I heard you the first time,” Emma interrupted. She walked over to her mother, put a hand to the woman’s shoulder, and then they were both gone. Louis looked over at the two remaining people in the room.

“Louis,” his grandfather began, his voice even, “what-”

“I gotta get my stuff,” Louis said, breaking eye contact and quickly exiting.

Once Louis reached the top of the stairs he let out the breath he'd been holding and leaned against the wall. “Wayzz?”

“Yes, Master?” The little kwami poked his head out of Louis’ pocket.

“You saw that, right?” Wayzz nodded. “Have you ever seen anything like it before?”

“I have,” Wayzz said slowly, “although… it has been many decades.”

Louis nodded. “Do you know what caused it?”

Wayzz shook his head. “In this case I could only begin to guess. But it matters not. You will be able to heal her regardless.”

Louis nodded again. “Thanks,” he said, before continuing on.

Emma reappeared next to Louis right before he reached the panic room, and she followed him inside without missing a step. “Are you going to actually explain anything?” she asked, as Louis ignored her and headed straight for his supply cabinet.

Jonathan looked up as they entered. “What happened?” he asked, instantly concerned.

Emma looked over at him. “Mom’s back.”

Jonathan stared at her in shocked silence. “She's _back_?” he finally managed to ask. “How?”

Emma shrugged. “Dad broke her out and then she hitchhiked, I think? I’d love to be able to tell you more, but before we could get the complete story from her, _Louis_ put her in a magically-induced coma!”

“I did not… okay, that's actually a really good analogy for what I did,” Louis admitted.

Jonathan narrowed his eyes. “Why?”

“Her energy’s a complete wreck,” Louis told him, not looking up from frantically throwing things into a bag. “I don't know what the Order was doing to her, but it… I didn't even know energy _could_ look like that.”

“Jeez, I'm sorry, that’s… that’s…” Jonathan trailed off for a moment, and then his eyes lit up as he whirled around to look at the spell pictures taped to the wall behind him. “Louis,” he said carefully, “do you think you could be a little more specific?”

Louis frowned. “Really bad? Really really bad? You can't see energy. I don't think I can explain what it looks like.”

“Could you try?”

“Like… like way worse than anything I've ever seen before. Worse than yours, worse than Emma’s when she got hit with that energy weapon in November-”

“I get that it's bad, Louis, I'm asking in what _way_ is it-wait, what do you mean ‘worse than mine’?”

Louis scoffed. “Oh, nothing,” he said sarcastically. “Your energy looks great, and making two hundred akumas with a Miraculous you're not even suited to in the first place _definitely_ doesn’t leave massive amounts of metaphysical scarring.” Louis closed his bag, stood up, and began walking for the door.

Jonathan pinched the bridge of his nose. “Okay, putting that fun fact aside for the moment… is your _mother’s_ energy scarred? Or is there maybe a closer medical analogy?”

Louis paused. “It's, like… starved. Emaciated. Stripped.”

Jonathan exhaled slowly and turned back to the spells. “Oh my God,” he said under his breath, “why didn't I think of that?”

“Think of what?” Emma asked.

“I mean, it's psychotic,” Jonathan added, still muttering to himself, “so maybe it's a good sign I didn't think of it, but still. Holy shit.”

“ _What’s_ psychotic?” Emma asked, annoyed. “Jesus, why doesn't anybody ever explain what they're talking about in this family?”

Jonathan looked back at Emma and Louis, then gestured to the pictures of the two spells. “What are the two big unanswered questions these raise?” he asked.

Louis shrugged. “Where the superheroes went?”

“Where the barrier power source is?” Emma suggested.

“Wrong and wrong,” Jonathan said. “Those are trivia questions. The _big_ questions are how the hell they’re still continuously powering the barrier spell, and why the hell they’d bother keeping the superheroes alive when killing them four months ago would have been much easier.”

The two teens stared blankly at him for a moment. “And…?” Emma finally prompted.

“And they answer each other,” Jonathan said, starting to get excited. “They kept the superheroes alive because the superheroes _are_ the power source. That’s why your mom’s energy looks stripped, it’s because this crazy barrier spell has been feeding off of it! The Order’s basically been using her as a human battery for the past four months.”

Louis’ eyes widened. “That… that would kill a person eventually, wouldn’t it?”

“A regular person, sure,” Jonathan agreed, looking back at the spell. “But superheroes generate much more magical energy than regular people, in order to power their abilities. Heck, that’s how this spell identified people to grab in the first place, it took everyone with a high enough magical output over the past year. With superheroes it might actually be sustainable.”

“But Mom doesn’t power her abilities,” Louis said, a note of panic in his voice. “Her kwami does.”

Jonathan's face fell. “Fuck,” he muttered. “That's right.”

“So Mom’s _dying_?” Emma asked, looking back and forth frantically between her brother and her uncle.

“Not anymore, not if she's back here,” Jonathan said. “The barrier's hold on her would have broken once she got far enough away from the anchor point.” He still sounded upset, and it took Emma less than a second to figure out why.

“Dad,” she whispered. “He's still back there. _He’s_ dying.”

Jonathan sighed. “We have time,” he said. “Months, at least. But… yeah, he's probably in bad shape. Along with any other superheroes who have external power sources. Which is…” he furrowed his brow, “twenty percent of superheroes, maybe? I haven't exactly done a recent census, but that's the number I remember from my research in the nineties.”

Louis closed his eyes. “So things are even worse than we thought,” he said.

“Not entirely,” Jonathan said. “There’s a bright side. Two, actually. Our two goals, freeing the superheroes and taking down the barrier, are now the _same_ goal. That makes your job way easier. And now that I know these two spells are the same spell, that makes my job easier. I can finally figure out where they are.”

“Really?” Emma asked.

Jonathan nodded and looked at her. “I could use your help,” he said. She nodded in determination and walked over to his desk, dropping her transformation in a flash of light as she went. She looked back at her brother.

“Mom’s four doors down from our room,” Emma told him.

“Thanks.” Louis slung his bag, heavy with supplies, over his shoulder and headed for the door. “I'll let you know when she's awake.”

 

* * *

 

The first thing Marinette noticed was the heavy smell of incense. She opened her eyes slowly, and after a few moments recognized the room as one of the many guest rooms of the Agreste mansion. Looking to her right, she saw her son sleeping in a chair he’d pulled up next to the bed. Wayzz was curled up, also asleep, on Louis’ shoulder, and Marinette studied them silently for a moment, trying to get used to the idea of her son as the Guardian. “Louis?”

“Mom!” Louis woke up immediately and leaned over. “Um… you're probably wondering what just happened.”

“No, I think I have a pretty good idea,” Marinette said lightly. “I'm familiar with the move. Your predecessor pulled on your father a few times, actually.” She slowly pushed herself up to a sitting position.

“Oh,” Louis said, surprised. “You're not… mad?”

Marinette shook her head. “I'd appreciate it if you didn't make a habit of it, though,” she said gently, and Louis grinned. “How long was I out for?”

“Um,” Louis glanced at his watch, “about eighteen hours?”

“ _Eighteen_?” Marinette exclaimed, stunned. “Your father was never out for more than three.”

“Yeah, that doesn't really surprise me,” Louis said, “you were, uh… you were in pretty bad shape.”

“Oh,” Marinette said, her smile fading. “Did you fix whatever the problem was?”

Louis nodded. “Yeah, your energy’s looking good as new again,” he said. “How do you feel?”

“Great,” his mother told him. “Best I've felt since… well, since before I disappeared.”

Louis sighed in relief. “Good.”

Marinette looked at her son silently for a moment, then took his hand. “I can't imagine how hard this must have been for you,” she said softly. “Becoming the Guardian the day your father and I vanished.”

Louis blinked, surprised. “Oh, it… it hasn't been so bad,” he said. “I mean… I mean at least I knew about you and Dad already, right? Dani and Emma had to deal with that on top of everything else.” He smiled reassuringly, but his mother didn't smile back. She just studied his face for a moment.

“I think maybe your father and I owe you an apology for that,” Marinette finally said, to Louis’ confusion. “We…” She trailed off, trying to organize her thoughts. “Oh, you were still a toddler when we realized you could tell, sweetheart. We didn't know what to _do_ , and Fu wasn't giving us any guidance about it, so we just… put it off.” Marinette sighed. “We thought we could keep everything normal for you kids until you were older, but it wasn't ever normal for you, was it? We just made you pretend it was. That must have been so frustrating. I'm sorry.”

Louis hadn't quite realized, until his mother spoke those words, how much he'd needed to hear them. “Thanks,” he whispered, leaning over and hugging her.

A few seconds later, Louis heard the distant sound of running. “That's probably Dani,” he said. “I bet she felt you wake up.”

“Really?” Marinette asked. “That's… I don't think your grandmother can feel things like that from the other side of the mansion.”

“You didn't know Grandma at the height of her power,” Louis said. “Dani’s an active Miraculous holder. Her empathy’s a lot more intense. It, uh, takes some getting used to.”

Before Marinette could ask Louis what he meant, the door of the room flew open and Dani was running through it. A second later she was in her mother’s arms. “Mom!”

“Hi, sweetheart,” Marinette said gently.

“You're okay now?”

“Mm hmm.”

“Ugh, I could have killed Louis when he knocked you out,” Dani said.

Marinette let out a soft laugh. “Well, I appreciate your restraint,” she said, brushing a lock of hair out of her daughter’s face. Dani grinned and released her, but stayed sitting on the bed. “What's that?”

“Oh, um,” Dani handed over the small bundle of clothes she'd carried in with her. “Grandma said-Grandma and Grandfather had to leave for the Resistance meeting, but before she left we were talking and she said that when she, um, got back… you know, thirty years ago, well, when _she_ got back she said changing into her old clothes made her feel a lot better and maybe it would make you feel better, too. So I had Emma bring me over to our house and I picked these out.”

“Oh,” Marinette whispered, trailing her fingers over the light pink top. She’d worn it a hundred times, designed and made it herself, and first worn it to her children’s graduation from primary school years ago. Marinette could feel both her children examining her current outfit: the gray prison uniform she'd lived in for months, now filthy and ragged from the day she'd spent running through the woods, avoiding civilization as she put as much distance as possible between herself and the place her boat had docked. Marinette looked down, catching sight of the damn number printed on her left, and suddenly getting out of it felt desperately important.

“Thank you, Dani,” Marinette said, smiling at her daughter. “I think it will.”

 

* * *

 

Louis and Dani waited outside their mother's room, somewhat anxiously, for her to finish showering and getting dressed. Neither of them could blame her for taking her time, not after everything she'd been through, but both of them would have preferred to keep their mother in their sights all the same. It was easier when they could see her, to believe she was really back.

Marinette finally emerged, wearing the outfit Dani had picked out, her now damp hair pulled back into a messy bun. “How do I look?”

“Perfect,” Dani said immediately, grinning.

Marinette sighed and pulled at the loose waistband of her jeans. “These don't fit very well anymore,” she said quietly. “I guess I lost weight.”

Dani bit her lip. “You look perfect,” she repeated. “Right?” she asked, looking at Louis.

“Hmm? Oh, yeah,” he said, studying his mother.

Dani narrowed her eyes. “What?”

Louis shook his head. “Nothing, I just… thought of another check I should do. It's probably overkill, but better safe than sorry.” He looked at his mother. “I'll be right back, my stuff’s down the hall.”

“No, I'll come,” Marinette said, following her son. “I'd love to see what you've got set up.”

Louis shrugged. “It's kind of all packed together in a single cabinet in one of the panic rooms,” he said. “Along with all the other incriminating stuff in the house. So we can hide it if an officer drops by unannounced, or so Emma can move it all quickly if we get made and have to evacuate. It's not very, like, organized or interesting to look at.”

Marinette nodded slowly. “Still,” she said, as they reached their destination, “I’d like to-” Marinette took one step into the room and froze. “What the hell are _you_ doing here?” she demanded angrily.

Jonathan and Emma, in the middle of working on the spell, both looked up. “Mom!” Emma exclaimed, jumping up and running to her mother’s arms immediately. “You’re awake!” Marinette hugged her daughter back, but she didn’t take her eyes off Jonathan for a second.

“Hi, Ladybug,” Jonathan said casually. “Nice to see you up and about.”

Marinette’s glare deepened, and she stepped in front of Emma protectively. “Emma, stay behind me.”

“What?” Emma frowned in confusion for a moment, then sighed in exasperation as she turned to glare at her siblings. “Why did you two geniuses think bringing Mom in here before catching her up on everything was a good idea?” she asked, annoyed.

“Sorry,” Louis said, grabbing a few things from his cabinet, “I needed my stuff, I wasn’t thinking.”

“Sorry,” Dani added, uncharacteristically subdued and looking slightly shaken.

“Mom,” Emma said slowly, turning back to her mother, “Uncle Jonathan’s been doing research on the Order spells. He’s just about figured out where Dad is. I’m helping him with-”

“No, you’re not,” Marinette interrupted, still not taking her eyes off Jonathan. “You’re not going anywhere near him while you’ve got a Miraculous.”

Jonathan looked like he was strongly resisting the urge to roll his eyes. “If you want Adrien back,” he said, his tone bordering on condescending, “I need to finish this work, and I need someone to check it. Do _you_ want to do it?”

“If it keeps my daughter away from you, fine.”

“Great,” Jonathan snapped. “How much linear algebra do you remember?”

Marinette’s glare deepened. “You caught me,” she said, in a venomous tone none of her children had ever heard from her before. “My math’s a little rusty. Maybe that’s because when I was supposed to be learning it, I had to keep skipping classes because _somebody_ kept making supervillains in the middle of the school day.”

“Okay,” Louis said loudly, “that’s everything I need.” He shoved a few things into one of his pockets, headed quickly for the door, and grabbed his mother’s hand on his way out. “Mom, you come with me. Emma, stay here and keep working.” He pulled his mother out of the room before she could protest, Dani following close behind.

“Louis-” Marinette started.

“Look, I get it,” he said. “Uncle Jonathan was a really bad guy once, and you don’t trust him. That’s understandable. But it was a long time ago, and things are different now.” They reached the library, and Louis motioned for his mother to sit down on the couch in the middle of the room. “He's been really helpful since the occupation began. He's not usually that confrontational either, but I think he's been up all night working and-”

“That's not it,” Dani interrupted, sitting down next to her mother. “Mom scared him.”

Marinette's eyebrows shot up. “ _I_ scared _him_? That's rich.”

“When you said Emma couldn't go near him,” Dani explained. “He likes Emma. I mean, he loves all of us,” she added, somewhat begrudgingly, “but he _likes_ Emma.”

“Somehow,” Marinette said, “that is not even a little bit comforting.”

“Well if it helps, I don't like him at all,” Dani said, leaning against her mother.

Marinette put an arm around her daughter. “That does help, Dani, thank you.” She looked at Louis and sighed. “What about you?”

Louis shrugged as he pulled out a few pendulums from his pockets and placed all but one on the coffee table. “I don't have any strong opinions. I've read his energy, and the flaws in his personality that allowed him to become Hawkmoth are still glaringly obvious, but they also require a pretty extreme set of circumstances.” Louis began swinging the remaining pendulum around his mother. “I don't think a recurrence is likely,” he continued. “We have so much to worry about already, Mom. You don't need to waste time worrying about Uncle Jonathan.”

Marinette shook her head slowly. “It's not that easy, Louis. You kids weren’t around back then, you don’t know what it was like with him terrorizing the city every few days.”

“I know,” Louis said, as he switched to the second pendulum. “But-” he stopped himself.

Marinette raised an eyebrow. “But what?”

Louis sighed. “We weren’t around back then,” he said slowly, “but… but you weren’t around two weeks ago when he saved Emma’s life.”

For a moment, Marinette didn't say anything. She simply closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Dani took her mother’s hand, then shot her brother a quick look of annoyance. “I think,” Marinette said slowly, “that maybe it's time for you kids to catch me up on everything that's happened while I've been… away.”

“Yeah,” Dani agreed, “probably.”

“Wait,” Louis said, putting the final pendulum down. “You've officially got a clean bill of magical health,” he said, “which means I finally get to do something I've been looking forward to since this all started.” He crossed the room to the back wall, pulled the Manet aside, and entered the code to the safe behind it. Marinette frowned in confusion, until he returned and she recognized the box he carried back with him.

“Oh,” she gasped, as Louis placed it on the table and opened the top.

“You have no idea, Mom,” Louis said, as he gently scooped up the earrings, “how relieved I am to be giving these back to you.” Marinette smiled, tearing up a little, and held out her hand. Louis dropped the earrings into his mother's waiting palm and as they landed there was a flash of light.

“Marinette!”

“Tikki! Oh, Tikki, it's so, so, _so_ good to see you again!” The small red kwami hugged Marinette’s cheek as tightly as she could. Louis and Dani exchanged a look, both smiling at the reunion. Louis had only had Wayzz for a few months, but already the thought of being separated from his sage, encouraging companion was chilling. Louis was certain his sisters felt the same way about their own kwami. After thirty years… well, Louis couldn't imagine it.

“Adrien!” Tikki suddenly gasped, floating in front of Marinette’s face. “Is he-”

“He's still in trouble,” Marinette said, as she put her earrings back on. “But now that we’re reunited, Tikki, we’re gonna get him back, I know it.” Her kwami nodded resolutely, then hugged Marinette once more.


	40. Danielle

“… and then once Louis and Emma were done scouting the camp out Emma came back for me,” Dani told her mother, “and I empowered General Benois-”

“Who was _amazing_ ,” Louis interrupted. “Dani did an incredible job with him.” Marinette smiled as Dani blushed slightly.

“Yeah, well, I can only take so much credit for Champions,” Dani said. “The general did all the real work, I just had to point him in the right direction and let him go. I guess after four months of being held prisoner he had a lot of pent-up frustration to get out,” Dani added without thinking.

“Yes,” Marinette said softly, “I’m sure he did.”

Dani and Louis exchanged a glance. “Well… anyway, that was right before you showed up,” Louis continued. “The military leaders are all having a big meeting with Alya and her people right now, to figure out what to do next. I sent Grandma a quick coded text to tell her you’re doing good, so now they know they’ll have Ladybug helping too. When everything goes down, that is. And that’s everything.”

Marinette nodded slowly. “I…” she took a breath, and Dani could feel the uneasiness rolling off of her in waves. Louis and Dani had done their best to downplay how dangerous the past four months had been for the three of them, but terror had gripped their mother’s heart more than once during their retelling. Dani had been around enough terrified parents over the past few months that she should have been used to the emotion, but somehow it was different when it was coming from her own mother. “I didn’t know what was happening on the outside, of course,” Marinette said, “but I suppose I should have suspected you three would be doing _something_ about it. Nobody in this family ever gets to sit these things out.”

Dani’s arm was already around her mother, but she hugged a bit more tightly and felt her mother’s bitterness recede a little. “What, um, what about you?” Dani asked. “You know the whole story from our side now. What’s yours?”

Marinette sighed deeply. “Well, I… hang on, we should get your sister. Where is she?” At the question, Louis immediately looked to Dani.

“Still where we left her,” Dani answered confidently. “Working on figuring out where Dad is. It’s going really well.” Marinette frowned, confused. “Or at least, the two of them are way more optimistic than they usually are working on that stuff.”

“Ah,” Marinette said, her expression clearing. Dani made a mental note to herself to dial back her blatant use of empathy until her mother was a little more acclimated to everything.

“You want me to go get her, bring her back here?” Louis offered.

“No,” Marinette said slowly, trying but failing to mask her irritation. “we might as well all go. If… if your uncle really is close to finding your father, it might help him to hear my story, too. I might as well tell it to everyone at once.”

“You sure?” Dani asked. She didn't relish the thought of being in the same room as her mother and Uncle Jonathan at the same time again. Her mother's shock, fear and anger upon seeing the man had been so intense Dani had practically struggled just to stay standing in its presence. And while Jonathan’s immediate response to Marinette wasn't nearly as strong, it hadn't been long before his emotions were almost as intense as hers.

“I'll be fine, sweetheart,” Marinette said. Well, she believed it at least, that was something.

 

* * *

 

Jonathan didn’t look up as the three of them entered the panic room, but Emma did. “Oh,” she said, “Mom, I-” she started to get up, but Marinette waved her back down.

“It’s fine, love,” she said gently, walking over to the desk. She looked over her daughter’s shoulder for a few seconds before looking at Jonathan. “So,” Marinette said carefully, “you know where Adrien is?”

“Just about,” Jonathan replied. He didn’t look up, and kept his voice neutral. “If you have any idea where you docked, though, that would be helpful for verification.”

Marinette nodded. “I didn't exactly take a tour of the place, but I'll see what I can remember.” Marinette looked over Emma’s work silently for a few more moments, then traced a finger lightly over the figures. “This is killing him?” she asked softly.

Jonathan shrugged. “Way things are going, Adrien might still outlive us all,” he muttered to himself. Half a second later he visibly winced as Marinette shot him a death glare. “Sorry. It's just… it's not as bad as it sounds. Adrien has at least a few months, probably more. We have more immediate deadlines, unfortunately. The Order’s close to figuring out how to detect Miraculous users, and Emma has less than two weeks of safe teleportation left.”

Marinette paled a little and glanced at Emma, who quickly looked away under her mother’s gaze. “Yes, Dani and Louis mentioned that.” Marinette paused, and from across the room Dani could feel her mother firmly shoving aside the part of herself that recoiled from saying what she was about to say. “Thank you.”

“Oh,” Jonathan said, clearly caught completely off-guard, “yeah, sure. Don't mention it.”

“Don't _mention_ it?” Marinette repeated, annoyed. “You saved my daughter’s life.”

Jonathan shrugged. “I didn't do it for thanks,” he said, somewhat defensively.

“I didn't say you did! I'm still _grateful_ and that's what decent people do, they say ‘thank you’ when they're grateful, and they say _sorry_ when they're remorseful-”

“Okay,” Louis interrupted. “Can we get back to the spell update?” Marinette and Jonathan both looked up at him, startled, and then Marinette took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Jonathan spread out his notes.

“I'll have Adrien’s exact location in less than an hour,” Jonathan told them, without a trace of doubt in either his voice or his mind.

“Really?” Marinette asked, all trace of her earlier irritation gone. Jonathan nodded.

“You're awfully confident,” Dani said, “considering you were completely wrong about the memory spell.”

“I was _not_ wrong about that,” Jonathan insisted, not looking up from his work.

“Mom clearly remembers everything.”

“So she broke it.” Jonathan looked up at Marinette. “When did you get your memories back?”

Marinette stiffened. “How did you know about that?” In response, Jonathan wordlessly pointed at one of the spell pages taped to the wall. Marinette sighed. “Three, or… was it four days ago, now? Five? It was the day before I escaped.”

All three of her children stared at her wordlessly for a moment. “Are you okay?” Dani finally asked in a whisper.

Marinette nodded, though Dani could feel her uncertainty. “It all just happened so fast,” Marinette said. “Remembering, escaping, making it back. It's… I'm still getting used to it.”

“How did you break it?” Emma asked.

There was a flash of desperate longing as Marinette closed her eyes. “I, um, kissed your father, actually.”

Jonathan snorted. “Yeah, that would do it,” he said.

“Oh,” Emma sighed. “Like you did with the Dark Cupid akuma. But how did you know-”

“I didn't,” her mother interrupted. “I didn't know anything. We just… fell in love again.”

True Love’s Kiss. Well, that just figured, didn't it.

Jonathan glanced over at Dani, and she _felt_ him notice her reaction. Ugh, he knew she hated it when he read her, why couldn't he just-

“They're not inherently romantic,” Jonathan said, looking back down at his work. Nobody else had noticed him look at Dani before he spoke. “Just… in case anybody was confused about that.”

“They're not?” Emma asked.

“Sure hope not,” Jonathan replied casually, “or that time I woke Adele up in ‘96 during the Sleeping Beauty incident suddenly feels a lot more awkward. I know in stories they're always very traditional, romantic… heterosexual,” he added, rolling his eyes, “but as far as real life magic is concerned, ‘true love’ is simply any kind of personal, deeply self-sacrificing love. It can be romantic, familial, even close friendships have been known to work on occasion. Just… you know, in case you kids ever need one, keep that in mind.”

“Oh, good,” Louis said, “so we don't have to run halfway across Paris to get Henri when Emma gets knocked out or whatever.”

Emma’s face went red. “Why are you assuming it would be _me_ that needed one?” she asked defensively.

“Because it's always you.” As Emma and Louis continued to bicker, their mother watched on with something actually resembling amusement. Nobody was paying any attention to Dani, and she felt the tension in her chest slowly ease.

“You two remember Mom was about to tell us what happened to her, right?” Dani interrupted a minute later, and Emma and Louis abruptly stopped arguing.

“Thank you, sweetheart,” Marinette said. “I-” she looked across the room suddenly, at the news playing on the TV screen mounted to the far wall. “Can we shut that off?”

“Oh. Um.” Emma quickly crossed the room and grabbed the remote, but she merely lowered the volume. “No, actually,” she told her mother apologetically. “We need to keep an eye on the Order broadcasts. Especially after a mission as big as liberating their high-ranking military prisoner camp. We never know if they're going to completely censor what we do from the public, or if they're going to broadcast all the details in the worst light imaginable. And we need to know if everyone in Paris is being told to look out for the people we freed or not.”

“Not that it makes much of a difference,” Louis interrupted quickly. “Most people in Paris still wouldn't give anyone from the Order the time of day, much less information about the Resistance.”

Marinette nodded. For a moment Dani was sure she'd comment, but then it passed and Marinette simply exhaled. “Well… I woke up in a prison cell,” she started. “I had no idea who I was or what I was doing there, and there was a very young blonde woman yelling at me in Swedish.”

“Swedish?” Emma asked.

“Luckily for me, she spoke French, too,” Marinette said. “There were plenty of cellmate pairs with no common language at all. Communication was… very awkward at first, in that place…”

 

* * *

 

“… and after it had been about, oh, fifteen minutes of not hearing any voices,” Marinette said, “I kicked out the panel, climbed out, replaced it, snuck off the boat, and ran for the woods as fast as I could. I probably wouldn’t have succeeded without my luck. Or been found a day later by someone actually willing to drive me home,” she added.

“Lucky the Order never figured out who you were, either,” Emma added, “or he might have been a lot less willing to drive you.”

Marinette frowned. “Why didn't the Order just release pictures of everyone they'd captured, if identification was so difficult?” Her children shrugged, then one by one looked at their uncle. After a moment he noticed and pulled his reading glasses off, pushing his work aside.

“I can only guess,” Jonathan started, “but… how many prisoners were there?”

“Ninety-four,” Marinette replied, before noticing her children’s shock. “What?”

“It’s just,” Dani dug through her bag and pulled out a tablet, “the Order’s only claimed to have neutralized about fifty superheroes. They have this whole nauseating website devoted to each one. And they ran mandatory broadcasts on each superhero as they were identified.”

“Yeah,” Jonathan said, “ninety-four sounds about right. The Order doesn’t want to admit that they just grabbed everyone powerful enough to be a threat. They’re obsessed with their narrative, and their narrative is that they freed Europe from masked vigilantism. If they released pictures of everyone they grabbed, it wouldn’t take the public long to figure out that half of them aren’t masked vigilantes at all. They’re regular people, like Beth. People who just happen to have powerful magic. And except for you and Adrien, identifying the superheroes _wasn’t_ difficult. The Order doesn’t know how to handle quantic magic, because in this plane of existence quantic magic is pretty much exclusive to the seven Miraculouses, but they’re very competent with more common forms. Quantic identity protection was the Order’s only blind spot, as far as we can tell. So figuring out the superhero identities one by one, that probably seemed like the better option.”

“I see.” Marinette looked at Dani. “Website?” she asked.

“Oh, yeah,” Dani said, handing her tablet over. “Here’s the woman Uncle Jonathan just mentioned, Beth Renaud. The woman they think is you. Recognize her?”

Marinette nodded. “She wasn’t in my group, but I knew her. She was there.” She scrolled down. “The other superheroes are here, too?”

“Yeah,” Dani said, “but don’t read the descriptions if you don’t want to be infuriated, the Order doublespeak gets _really_ obnoxious when superheroes are involved.”

Marinette skimmed through the site. “She was in my group,” she said, pausing at one picture, of a Portuguese woman. “Oh-Two-Three. Our leader. She sort of fell into the roll on a whim, actually, but she was good at it.” Marinette read silently for a moment. “Inez Ferreira, the Angel of Guimarães. A doctor who used her magic healing powers to save the dying.” Marinette finished reading the description and sighed. “How do they manage to spin that like it’s a bad thing?”

Dani rolled her eyes. “They’re all like that,” she said, annoyed.

Marinette kept scrolling. “Oh!” she said with a soft gasp. “One.” She blinked back tears. “She was in my group, too. She was… she was very brave.”

Louis craned his neck to see the screen, and his jaw dropped. “ _Pyra_?” he asked, incredulous. “You were in the same group as Pyra?”

“Is that who she is?” Marinette started to read the description, and Dani felt a pang of guilt from her mother. “We… when we were originally coming up with the escape plan, we were going to send her. She was so young, she had no business being in a place like that. But then I got my memories back, and she insisted it be me. Insisted it would maximize our chances of success. She was right, I suppose, but I didn’t want to admit it at first. She was very insistent.” Marinette put a hand to her cheek. “Actually, she slapped me in the face and told me to snap out of it.”

“Pyra slapped you in the face?” Louis asked in disbelief.

As their mother kept reading, Dani took a few steps over and sidled up to her brother. “Jealous?” she whispered.

Louis’ cheeks turned bright red. “Shut up,” he mumbled back, and Dani grinned.

“She was so convinced she was a hero, after I told everyone about being Ladybug,” Marinette said, more to herself than to her children. “It feels wrong, knowing who she is when she still doesn’t remember.” She finished the description, then looked at Dani, her eyes still wet. “I think I’d like to read the rest of these on my own,” she said. “Could I borrow this?”

Dani nodded. “Of course,” she said. “Take all the time you need with it.”

 

* * *

 

“Mom?” Dani poked her head into her mother’s room.

“Oh, hi, sweetie,” Marinette said, looking up from the tablet she’d borrowed. “That was very good timing, I just finished reading through everything.” She paused, then narrowed her eyes. “That wasn’t actually a coincidence, was it?”

“Um. No, I kind of… felt it. Sorry, if that's bothering you I can stop-”

“No, no,” Marinette said quickly. “I'd like to get used to it. I don't want you hiding your abilities from me.”

“Oh. Well, okay,” Dani said, entering the room and closing the door softly behind her. Marinette smiled as Dani approached.

“If I can get used to having an empath for a mother-in-law,” Marinette added, as Dani sat next to her, “I'm sure getting used to having one for a daughter will be a piece of cake.” Dani laughed, and some of the noticeable tension in her shoulders eased. “Did you need something?”

“Yeah, um… well, I know you've already met Rajji,” Dani started, “and I guess you must know Wayzz even better, but you haven't actually met-” Dani opened the satchel slung over her shoulder and squinted into it. “Come _on_ ,” she whispered impatiently, before reaching inside and turning back to her mother. “You haven't met Nooroo yet,” she finished, holding her hand up. The tiny kwami in her palm looked up at Marinette shyly, his lilac eyes wide.

“Oh!” Marinette leaned forward. “It's very nice to finally meet you, Nooroo,” she said. Nooroo’s expression didn't change.

“I'm sorry,” he said softly. “For everything that-”

“Oh, no,” Marinette said quickly, and Dani could feel her mother’s heart breaking, just a little. “No, no, none of that was your fault, I know that.”

“I told you she wouldn't blame you,” Dani said.

Before Nooroo could respond, a red blur darted out from behind Marinette and collided into him. “Nooroo!” Tikki exclaimed, hugging him tightly in mid-air. “We were so worried about you!” Tikki’s energetic embrace had carried them both a few feet across the room, and instead of returning they landed on a nearby dresser and continued to talk quietly. Marinette and Dani watched them silently for a moment, and then Marinette put an arm around her daughter.

“I’m glad that went well,” Dani said softly.

“Why wouldn’t it?” Marinette asked.

Dani shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said, fiddling with the amethyst brooch pinned to her chest, “I knew you wouldn’t _really_ be mad at Nooroo, but… well, you became a superhero to fight his Miraculous, so I… I can see why he’d be nervous.”

“Ah,” Marinette said, understanding dawning. She looked at her daughter. “Were you nervous too?”

Dani shrugged again. “Maybe a little,” she admitted, not meeting her mother’s gaze. “I mean… well, Nooroo couldn’t help it, but I’ve made two akumas while you’ve been gone. I didn’t really know how you’d feel about that.”

Marinette bit her lip. “Danielle, I couldn’t be prouder of everything you and Emma and Louis have done in the last four months. You know that, right?” Dani nodded. “You’ve had to deal with so much more than I did at your age,” Marinette continued, “and it sounds like all three of you have been doing an amazing job.” She sighed. “I know four months doesn’t sound like a very long time, but I can tell you three did a lot of growing up in those months. I hate that I missed it. Everything’s so different now, I’m not sure how long it’ll take me to catch up.”

“Oh,” Dani said, squeezing her mother’s hand reassuringly, “some things are still the same.”

“Yeah?”

“Mm hmm.” Dani nodded. “I’m still perfect, of course,” Marinette grinned, “Louis still breaks into everything, Emma’s still an awkward mess around Henri… which is crazy, if you ask me. You’d think after she teleported unconscious into the guy’s living room they’d finally get over themselves, but no.”

Marinette laughed. “Yes, well. Awkward teenage romance, in my experience, is the one thing that superheroics take a backseat to.” Marinette hesitated. “What about you?” she asked her daughter. “Any new awkward boys I should be worried about with you? Or girls?”

“Oh. Um.” Dani hadn’t forgotten she’d be having this conversation eventually, but she suddenly felt very unprepared for it. “Well, actually, uh. The thing is…”

Marinette frowned. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Nothing, nothing. It’s not _wrong_ ,” Dani said defensively,  “it’s just. Um. I’m asexual, actually. So, uh, one less thing you need to worry about?” Dani let out a small and forced laugh, but her mother didn’t laugh back. Dani wasn’t sure how to interpret what, exactly, her mother was feeling. “I would have told you before,” Dani added in a rush, “I just, I didn’t really figure it out until I became an empath and I had, like, a baseline of comparison, you know?”

For a brief, awful moment the clearest emotion Dani could read from her mother was disappointment. But then Marinette grabbed her and hugged her tightly, and Dani realized she’d misinterpreted it completely. “I am _so_ sorry,” Marinette whispered. “I should have been here for that. I should have been here for you.”

“Oh,” Dani said, and her eyes were filling up with tears, partly due to her own relief and partly due to her mother’s regret, “it’s okay.”

“It's bad enough you were scared to tell me about the akumas, but on top of that you were worried about telling me this, too?” Marinette hugged Dani even more tightly. “Danielle, you're my daughter and you _are_ perfect, understand?”

Dani nodded wordlessly and clung to her mother silently, not trusting herself to speak for a while. “I wish…”

“What, sweetheart?” Marinette asked, not loosening her embrace.

Dani sighed. “I just wish we had time to go over everything, that's all. Just… just _talk_. For, like, a week or two, just talk. There must be so much you can tell us now, things we didn't know growing up. But we’re still in the middle of this stupid occupation, and things are getting worse. There isn't any time.” Dani leaned into their embrace, resting her head against her mother’s chest, and for a few minutes the room was quiet.

“You're not named after my cousin,” Marinette said, breaking the silence abruptly.

Dani frowned. “Huh?”

Marinette sighed and stroked Dani’s hair. “You're right,” she said. “There isn't enough time to go through everything your father and I kept from you kids, everything we lied about. But I can tell you things as I think of them, and that was the first thing that came to mind.”

Dani pulled away. “I'm not named after Danielle Miller? But… why would you even lie about that? You send her a Christmas card every year with my picture! What's the point of-”

“Oh, you're named after Danielle Miller,” her mother interrupted. “But she's not my cousin. She's an FBI agent. Being cousins was just our cover story when we were infiltrating that cult together, the one that had your grandmother.” Dani’s jaw dropped. “It was your father’s idea, actually, to name you after her. I didn't have two girls’ names picked out, so I asked him to choose yours. Agent Miller helped save his mother, she took a bullet for his wife…” Marinette shrugged. “It seemed fitting.”

For a moment, Dani was silent. “That's so _cool_ ,” she finally whispered, and her mother smiled.


	41. Marinette Dupain-Cheng

“There,” Jonathan said, sticking a pin in the giant, note-covered wall map of Europe he'd been working on for months. “That's where Adrien is. That's where the Order’s holding the rest of the missing superheroes.”

Everyone else stared silently at the map for a moment, and then Marinette stepped forward and lightly touched a finger to the end of the pin.

_Hold on, kitty. I'm coming back for you. Just hold on a little bit longer._

“I still don't see why you needed to know they were the same spell to crack it,” Dani said, shoving her hands in the pockets of her skirt. “You already had all the pieces.”

“If you had a bunch of jigsaw pieces in two piles,” her uncle replied, “and you thought they were for two separate puzzles when they weren't, you wouldn't be able to solve either of them, would you?”

Dani shrugged. “Wouldn't know. I've never done a jigsaw puzzle because I'm not a million… years… old…” Dani trailed off mid-jab, suddenly distracted, and then a wide grin broke out across her face. “They're back,” she said.

“Your grandparents?” Marinette asked, turning away somewhat reluctantly from the map and its marker. “From their Resistance meeting?”

Dani nodded. “Yeah, they're coming up through the hidden exit in the basement now. And they're not alone,” she added, her grin widening. Before Marinette could ask her daughter what on Earth that meant, Dani had grabbed her hand and pulled her out of the room. She continued to drag her mother along the hallway, down the giant staircase, and through the first floor. Before Marinette had a chance to catch up mentally to what was happening, they turned a corner and Marinette was, quite suddenly, staring at her best friend.

There was a split second of shock, of disbelief, and then they were both running for each other, laughing and crying. “They said you were back,” Alya whispered, hugging Marinette so tight she wasn’t sure she’d be able to keep breathing, “but I couldn’t really believe it until I saw you. How are you _back_?”

“It’s a long story,” Marinette said. “I can’t wait to tell you all about it.”

Alya tightened her embrace, then abruptly pulled back and shook Marinette by the shoulders. “Don't you ever do that again!” Alya shouted suddenly.

“Do what, get kidnapped?” Marinette asked, wiping the tears off her face and grinning. “It wasn't exactly up to me, Alya-”

“Uh uh,” Alya interrupted, “I get enough superhero lip from your damn kids, I don't need any more of it from you.” Marinette laughed and hugged her friend again.

“What, I don’t get a hug?”

“Nino! Oh!” Marinette broke away from Alya and threw her arms around Nino, embracing him just as tightly. “God, it’s so good to see you, it doesn’t even feel real.”

Nino laughed. “Nothing’s felt real for a long time,” he said. “At least this feels good-unreal.” He hugged Marinette back. “Heard my boy broke you out?” Marinette nodded, and Nino patted her back. “We’ll get him back, too.”

“Yeah,” Dani said excitedly, “what’s the plan for that? We know exactly where he is now, so what did you guys come up with at your meeting?”

The four returning adults all exchanged a hesitant glance with one another, and then Adele turned to her granddaughter. “General Benois and the rest of the military personnel,” she said slowly, “feel that even with Ladybug’s return and our new information, it would still be best to stick to the original plan of taking Paris back first.”

Dani’s jaw dropped. “Seriously? We know exactly where Dad is! And rescuing the superheroes will take down the barrier, the whole _continent_ falls once we do that! Who the fuck cares about Paris?”

“Danielle!” Marinette turned to her daughter, shocked. “Don’t use language like that when speaking to your grandmother!”

For a second, Dani looked genuinely confused. “Grandma doesn’t care about swearing,” she said.

“Yes, she does,” Marinette replied automatically. Dani rolled her eyes.

“One of us is an empath,” she muttered, “and can tell exactly how much everyone cares about everything.”

“Your mother cares, doesn’t she?” Alya said, folding her arms. Dani’s cheeks turned pink.

“Yeah. Sorry, Mom,” Dani mumbled. Alya turned to Marinette.

“See?” she said. “Superhero lip. We’ve got enough of it already.”

Marinette smiled back, but she was clearly preoccupied. “So… the plan is to take Paris back? Why?”

“Danielle is quite correct,” Gabriel replied, “that taking down the barrier will end this occupation. Which means we cannot risk making that move before we have our best possible chance of success. And currently… we know the location, but almost nothing else. What defenses the island has, what contingencies the Order has for keeping the barrier in place, we know nothing of any of it. Paris’ defenses, on the other hand, are well documented. It will be difficult, but we have good chances. And once we have our city back, we may be able to question high-ranking Order operatives, and learn everything we need to know about the prison island.”

“Besides,” Adele added, “other resistances in other cities are ready to make a stand as well. If we coordinate our uprisings, we can split the Order’s focus, and hopefully keep it split so they can’t present a united defense of the barrier.” She sighed. “Believe me, Gabriel and I would like nothing more than to rescue Adrien as quickly as possible. But we can’t just think about what we want. Adrien would understand that.”

Marinette nodded slowly. “Yes,” she agreed, “he would.”

“We still have planning to do,” Alya said. “Breaking through the Order’s defenses is not going to be easy. We should head upstairs, catch everyone up, get a head start on brainstorming with the resident magic expert.” She sighed begrudgingly.

“You know what, babe,” Nino said, putting a hand to her shoulder, “let me do that.”

“What? Oh, no, that’s not what I-”

“I can get everyone up to speed on the latest planning,” her husband interrupted gently. “You two clearly have a lot of catching up to do.” He hugged Marinette tightly again, then turned and started to head upstairs. After a moment, Adele and Gabriel followed. Once they were gone Alya turned to Marinette, grinning.

“Come on,” she said, grabbing Marinette’s hand, “I know where your in-laws keep all the good alcohol.”

 

* * *

 

“Alya,” Marinette said slowly, “I'm not an expert, but I think this bottle of wine is worth more than my car.”

Alya scoffed as she grabbed two glasses and a corkscrew from their spots in the Agreste wine cellar. “My best friend just came back from the dead,” she said. “You can't put a price tag on celebrating that.” She took the bottle back from Marinette, quickly uncorked it, and poured two glasses before sliding one across the cellar’s small bartop to her friend.

“So you just know where everything is in the mansion now?” Marinette asked.

“Nah, just the stuff in the rooms without windows,” Alya replied. “I’m here a lot, but I can’t risk being seen from the outside. You’re having a drink with the most wanted woman in Paris, you know,” she added proudly.

“For now,” Marinette said, taking a large sip. She started to put her glass down, looked at Alya, and then took another, larger sip.  “Are you mad?” Marinette asked nervously. “That I never told you?”

Alya sighed and leaned against the counter. “Maybe I was a few months ago,” she admitted. “I was kind of feeling everything at once back then. It was a really awful way to find out.”

Marinette nodded. “Yeah, I’m sure it was.”

“But that wasn't your fault,” Alya continued. “None of us in a million years could have predicted the Occupation. And after fighting it for a few months, I have a whole new appreciation for secrecy.” Alya looked Marinette in the eye. “I'm not mad,” she said. “I'm just… oh, I was so scared I'd have to do this without you!” She reached over and grabbed Marinette’s hand, squeezing it.

“You don't,” Marinette said, squeezing back as tightly as she could. “Ladybug’s back.”

“Oh, who cares about Ladybug,” Alya laughed. “I was just scared to do this without my best friend.”

Conversation came easily after that. Alya and Marinette spent the rest of the hour, and the rest of the bottle of wine, catching each other up on the past four months, sharing their experiences. Marinette had spent thirty years wondering what it would be like to open up to her best friend, to spill everything, and the reality was every bit as liberating as she’d imagined.

Of course, by the end of the bottle, the conversation had become significantly less focused.

“I _interrogated_ a _spy_ ,” Alya said, more to herself than to Marinette. “How crazy is that?”

“I stole a book,” Marinette mumbled. “It was pretty good.”

“Oh, Adele helped,” Alya added. “She was _really_ good at it. Who knew Adrien’s mom was scarier than his dad?”

“ _Me_ ,” Marinette answered loudly. “Me. I knew that. She threatened to shoot me in the head when I was fifteen, Alya. Like, an hour after I met her. That's Adele’s idea of,” Marinette swayed slightly as she held her fingers up to make sarcastic air quotes, “ _hostage negotiations_.”

Alya burst out laughing. “Girl, when this is all over, I am interviewing the _fuck_ out of your family. It's gonna be amazing. My best book ever.”

Marinette snorted. “Good luck getting anything out of Adrien’s parents. Adrien’s been trying to get them to open up for decades. Gabriel won't say anything about anything ever, and Adele… I mean, she's a lot better, but half the time she only talks about shallow stuff. Statues and whatnot.”

“Oh, that reminds me,” Alya said, “they tore down your statues.”

Marinette’s face fell. “What, _all_ of them?”

“Yyyyyyyep,” Alya said. “Like, the first week of the Occupation. They made me report on it, the bastards.”

Marinette pouted. “I _liked_ my statues. I got my first one, what, three months in? Theo made it.” She gasped suddenly. “The kids never got one, did they? Oh, and they’re having it so much harder than Chat and I did. That _sucks_.”

“It does suck.” Alya paused. “They have wanted posters, though. I think Louis framed his. Wanna see?”

“Pass.”

“Yeah,” Alya agreed, “I wouldn't if I were you. They creep me out. I can't imagine how I'd feel if it was Remy.”

“Oh, Remy!” Marinette gasped. “How is he? The kids told me a little about what happened the night you were arrested, it sounded awful.”

Alya nodded. “It was. But he bounced back quick. He’s a lot stronger than Nino or I realized. He’s with my sister now, out in the country. They don’t see Order guards too often that far out, and so far nobody’s realized who he is. He’s doing really well.” Alya finished off her third glass. “Sometimes I wish he wasn’t doing quite so well without us,” she whispered. “Is that horrible? Am I a horrible mother?”

“No!” Marinette wrapped an arm around her friend. “No, of course not. I know exactly how you feel.”

Alya snorted. “You don’t actually think we’ve been doing well without you, do you?”

Marinette shrugged. “Well… I don’t know, the kids-”

“Have been doing an incredible job all things considered, sure,” Alya interrupted, “but trust me, without you we’ve all just been getting by any way we can. I wish you could have seen them these past few months, the way they talk about you. Every other sentence out of their mouths has been ‘when Mom gets back’ this, ‘when we rescue Mom’ that. Trust me, they really missed you and they really needed you. We all did.”

Marinette closed her eyes and nodded. “Thank you,” she whispered.

 

* * *

 

“How’s planning going?” Alya asked, as she and Marinette rejoined the others about half an hour later.

“Not bad,” Nino replied. “Louis is just trying to describe the defenses of the Order’s main base so we can figure out how to take them down.”

“I thought you did that already?” Marinette asked, confused. She looked at her son. “You and Dani said you three broke in, isn’t that how you got the location of the prison camp you just liberated?”

“Unfortunately,” Gabriel interrupted, “there were many things working in our favor that no longer apply. Adele and I were invited in, so we were able to slip the dampener past the palace’s defenses. And a temporary dampening is quite a different thing from a permanent take-down. And the children used no magic once inside, they merely accessed unprotected information. If they had begun any kind of an attack, the defenses would have kicked in full force.” He leaned back in his chair, tenting his fingers together. “Fortunately, the mission at least afforded Louis the opportunity to study the defenses personally.”

“Yeah,” Jonathan said, sounding annoyed, “now if only he could figure out how to describe what he observed in a way that’s actually _useful_.”

Louis shrugged defensively. “I can’t help that I see magical energy in a unique way,” he said. He looked over at his mother. “Don’t worry, we’ll figure it out eventually.”

Marinette nodded, then looked around the room. “Where are your sisters?”

“Oh, just picking stuff up from the store before curfew,” Louis replied. “Sorry, we should have asked if you wanted anything before they left. Want me to text them?”

Marinette shook her head, then looked at her in-laws, her eyebrows raised. “You gave the kids a curfew?” she asked incredulously.

Adele and Gabriel exchanged a look. “No,” Adele finally said, her tone gentle. “No, we didn’t.”

Marinette blinked. “Oh,” she said, everything clicking a moment later. “I see.” She shook her head. “Every time I think I’ve been caught up on everything,” she muttered to herself.

“You’ll get used to it eventually,” Adele said.

Marinette bit her lip. “God, I hope not.”

 

* * *

 

There was a gentle knock at Marinette’s door late that night. Before she could answer, it opened a few inches and Adele poked her head in. “Mind if I come in?”

“Not at all,” Marinette said, sitting up. She noticed a small parcel in her mother-in-law’s grasp. “What’s that?”

“Oh,” Adele rolled her eyes and gave Marinette a small smile as she handed it over. “Maybe it’s silly, but…”

Marinette opened the box, then let out a small laugh. “Cannolis.”

“It’s not exactly a family tradition I was hoping to establish,” Adele said as she sat down next to Marinette, “but seeing as how disappearing has become one whether we like it or not, we might as well have this, too.” She paused. “I wish I could have gotten them from your parents.”

“They’re still in Wenzhou?”

“As far as anyone knows. Communication with the outside has been impossible so far.”

“So they have no idea what’s happening?” Marinette asked, and Adele shrugged. “Right. No communication.” She looked at Adele. “So… are you here to ask about Adrien?”

“I’m here to see if there’s anything I can do for you, dear,” Adele said immediately. “But… yes, if it’s not too painful, I’d also like to hear how my son’s been.”

“It’s not too painful,” Marinette replied. “He’s been…” she paused, then sighed. “I guess if I said he’s been good, you’d know exactly how much of a lie that was. But he’s been _strong_ , Adele, he’s been so strong. He kept me going in that place, even when I didn’t remember the first thing about him. Or about myself.” Marinette hesitated. “He… got in trouble a lot, though,” she said softly. “Mostly for defending other prisoners.”

Adele’s eyes had quickly filled up with tears when Marinette began speaking, but she managed to keep from openly weeping and instead simply nodded shakily. “That… that sounds like Adrien,” she said. A sudden memory struck Marinette.

“Gabriel said the same thing about you.”

“Hmm?”

“Back in 2016. When the FBI was briefing us.”

“Ah.” Adele wiped at her eyes. “Sometimes I wonder how much easier Adrien’s life would have been, if he didn’t take after me quite so much,” she said with a sigh. “And now there’s a whole new generation to wonder the exact same thing about. They have the best qualities of the two of you, you know. I wish the world didn’t punish those qualities quite so harshly. But I suppose there isn’t any point in dwelling on it.”

“I suppose not,” Marinette said quietly. Adele patted her arm.

“Let me know if I’m being invasive,” Adele said, “but you seem troubled. Not that I blame you, of course, but I thought you might want to talk to someone who has some idea of what you’ve gone through.”

“I just…” Marinette sighed. “I don't feel like I'm actually back, I guess? I feel like a visiting guest in my own family.”

Marinette expected Adele to vehemently protest this assessment, but to her surprise her mother-in-law merely nodded. “Yes, I remember that feeling,” she said. “Very well.”

“Did it go away?”

“It did.” Adele hesitated. “It took a lot of time, though. And therapy. I had to work at it.”

Marinette let out a humorless laugh. “That's not really an option right now, is it?”

“I'm afraid not. But talking helps.”

Marinette nodded. “I wasn't naive, you know. I knew the kids would get them eventually. And sure, I thought I could keep it from happening until they were adults, but I knew there was a chance they'd get them at the same age their father and I did. So hearing them talk about their powers, I was prepared for that. But… hearing them talk about _curfews_! And censorship, and mandatory broadcasts, like those things are _normal_ , just an everyday part of life, it's sickening, Adele! How can you stand it?”

Her mother-in-law considered the question for a moment. “I guess because I can tell exactly how temporary they think it is,” she finally said. “They’re very confident we’ll eventually succeed, that one day everything will go back to normal.”

“Are you?” Marinette asked in a whisper.

“Oh,” Adele shrugged, “it’s been a long time since I had that kind of certainty about anything. Maybe not since I was their age. And even if we do succeed… whatever ‘normal’ looks like on the other side of this, it will certainly be different than what it looked like before.”

Marinette’s face fell. “You’re right,” she agreed. “It will be very different.”

Adele took her hand. “Maybe that doesn’t have to be a bad thing, though,” she added.

 

* * *

 

The next morning, when Marinette came downstairs, she was surprised to find all three of her children awake in time for breakfast.

“It’s the last day of winter break,” Louis explained when she asked. “Might as well enjoy every hour of it.”

“I can’t believe we have _school_ tomorrow,” Dani muttered, still half-asleep, as she reached for a croissant. “Like we’re not days away from open rebellion.”

“Until we’re completely ready for that rebellion,” her grandfather said calmly, not looking up from his paper, “you three are going to continue acting as though nothing is different. The absolute last thing this family needs to be doing is inviting suspicion.”

“I know, I know, it’s just going to be _weird_ ,” Dani complained.

“Yeah,” Louis agreed, “I’m not going to be able to focus on anything.”

“So you’ll have no trouble acting like nothing’s different, then,” Emma said immediately. Louis rolled his eyes, then squinted at his sister.

“Are you wearing _make-up_?” he asked incredulously. Emma’s cheeks immediately turned even pinker.

“No,” she said defensively. “Why would I-”

Before she could finish her sentence, an alarm started sounding from the television set. Marinette was the only one who reacted with any noticeable concern, and Dani instantly reached over the table to put a hand on her arm. “It’s fine, Mom,” she said. “It’s just a mandatory broadcast.” Dani turned towards the television set. “I guess they decided to report on the camp we liberated after all.”

“That’s odd,” Emma said, as Louis grabbed the remote and turned up the volume. “Usually if they’re going to report on something at all it’s within 24 hours.”

“… advise citizens to be on the lookout for this dangerous escaped rebel,” the woman on the news was saying, “and immediately report any potential sightings to the authorities at once. Failure to do so is, of course, a capital offense.”

“One rebel? Singular?” Dani said, indignant. “We liberated the whole camp! And why are they leaving out our role in the breakout?”

“Maybe they only care about catching Benois,” Louis suggested. “And maybe they think a rescue from us looks too sympathetic?”

“… did not escape anywhere near Paris, but until more is known citizens across the empire are advised to be vigilant…”

“Wait,” Emma said, her face suddenly falling. “What if she’s not talking about-” Emma fell silent, along with everybody else in the room, as the news displayed a picture of the dangerous escaped rebel. Then, one by one, everyone in the room turned and looked at Marinette, who was still staring in shock at her own picture on the screen.

“Oh, _fuck_ ,” Marinette whispered.


	42. Emma

“Well,” Louis said slowly, “at least it's a really bad picture of you.”

“Yeah,” Dani agreed, “and everyone thinks you're dead, so maybe people won't realize-”

“We’re evacuating,” her grandfather interrupted. “Immediately.”

Adele sighed. “Four months we made it,” she muttered. “Well, it's longer than we were expecting to last in August.”

“Evacuating?” Marinette asked, tearing her eyes away from her picture on the screen.

“We planned for it months ago,” Louis said, as he and his sisters started to get up. “Just in case the Order ever got close to figuring out who we are. You can help me throw stuff into boxes, Dani’ll transform so she can monitor for any Order agents closing in, and Emma-”

“Does all the real work, as usual,” Emma finished. “Rajji, feathers out!”

“Get your uncles first,” her grandmother told her, pulling out her phone, “while I get the latest evacuation point from Alya.”

“Right.” Emma nodded, then disappeared.

Emma hadn't been back to her uncles’ apartment since she'd moved their library the day after Paris was invaded. She was struck, unexpectedly, by the memory of that day as she rematerialized. How her head had been reeling with so much new information, information that now seemed completely normal to her. How apprehensive she'd been about the prospect of becoming a superhero. How little she'd really understood at the time-what life under the Order was going to be like, how dangerous her life was about to become, how long it would be before she saw her mother again, before the universe finally cut her family a break-or seemed to, anyway, until that morning’s broadcast.

God, she’d been so _young_ four months ago.

Shaking herself, Emma looked around. The apartment was totally silent. “Uncle Jonathan?” she shouted. A moment later she heard a muffled response from a room in the back, and made her way towards it. She found both her uncles still in bed, Ferd sitting up and rubbing his eyes.

“Emma!” he said, as cheerfully as he could manage while still waking up. “Sorry for sleeping in, is Jonathan late to a meeting or something?” He leaned over and shook his husband awake. “Oh, I heard your mother escaped, that's-”

“Yeah,” Emma interrupted dryly, “you and, as of five minutes ago, everyone else in Paris heard, too.”

Ferd paled, then shook Jonathan again, harder. “What? I'm up, I'm up,” Jonathan mumbled, sitting up and opening his eyes. “Emma?” Jonathan was wide awake upon noticing his niece. “What's wrong?”

“You slept through the latest mandatory broadcast,” Emma said, crossing her arms and leaning against the frame of the doorway. “About a dangerous escaped rebel prisoner that all citizens are required to help identify and apprehend under penalty of death. Three guesses as to which escaped prisoner they're looking for.”

“Jesus,” Jonathan muttered. “Well, I guess we should have seen that coming.”

“We’re evacuating,” Emma said. “You two are already packed, right?”

“Yeah,” Ferd said. “Big suitcase, out in the hall near the door, you can't miss it.

Emma nodded. “Does anything else here need to be moved, in case the Order shows up to search the place?”

“No, everything else that's important is already at your grandparents’.” Jonathan bit back a yawn. “Give us five minutes to get dressed, okay?”

 

* * *

 

There were two evacuation plans in place for the Agreste household. There was the extremely fast evacuation plan, for when an Order raid was imminent. This plan got everybody and all essentials out of the house in less than four minutes. And then there was the extremely thorough evacuation plan, which took much longer but removed every possible hint of their identities and activities from the past four months, and made sure no Order operatives would discover anything useful in a search.

Several of Alya’s sources assured her that the Order was still completely baffled as to the identity of their escaped prisoner, with no leads or information, and no real reason to believe she was in Paris at all, so currently the thorough evacuation plan was underway. Dani was transformed and using the full extent of her abilities, ready to shout a warning if she sensed anyone from the Order approaching. Ferd and Jonathan were repacking their library and all of Jonathan’s work on the Order spells, and Louis was packing up all his Guardian supplies and tomes. Adele and Marinette were combing through the mansion looking for anything incriminating that might have been missed, Gabriel was in the security room ready to activate the mansion’s military-grade defense system if necessary, and Emma was moving the boxes as fast as they were packed to the abandoned house Alya had found for them.

The evacuation was about halfway completed when the doorbell rang. Inside the panic room, Emma and Louis looked at each other, eyes wide.

“It can't be the Order,” Emma said, trying to stay calm. “There's no way they've identified Mom already, and even if they had they wouldn't ring the bell first. Right?”

Louis shrugged. “Maybe I should transform, just in-”

“Emma!” a very annoyed sounding Dani shouted from the foyer. Emma dropped her transformation and ran out of the room. Twenty seconds of frantic running later, she reached the main staircase and looked down at her sister, who was glaring up at her with her hands on her hips. “It’s for _you_ ,” she said, one eyebrow arched. Confused, Emma ran down the stairs and across the foyer before opening the door.

“Hi,” Henri Lavillant-Couffaine said, shooting Emma a quick, shy smile. “Ready to-” Before he could finish the sentence, Emma grabbed his arm and forcefully yanked him inside, shutting the door after him as quickly as possible.

“What the hell are you thinking, coming over here?” Dani asked, hands still on her hips. “Do you have a death wish or something?”

“What? No, I-” Henri noticed that Dani was transformed. “Woah, uh… why are you-”

“What are you doing here, Henri?” Emma interrupted. Henri looked back at Emma, and his face fell slightly.

“You forgot,” he said, and a second later Emma gasped and covered her mouth.

“Oh, _shoot_! Henri, I am so sorry-”

“It’s fine, I should have confirmed last night or something-”

“I didn’t forget last night!” Emma said urgently. “I didn’t forget this morning, either! I forgot exactly,” Emma glanced across the foyer at a large grandfather clock in the corner, “twenty minutes ago, when the latest mandatory broadcast aired.” Emma sighed. “Which, I’m guessing, you haven’t seen yet.”

Henri shook his head. “No, I was walking here,” he said. “Are you guys in trouble?”

“We’re about to be,” Emma said, “so I’m really sorry, but I gotta postpone our, uh, you know, park… walking… plans.”

“Just call it a date, losers,” Dani muttered loudly, and Emma turned red. Henri, on the other hand, went several shades paler, and at first Emma didn’t realize why.

“Henri!” Marinette said brightly, from somewhere behind Emma. “I thought I heard your voice, it’s good to see you again!”

“It’s, uh, it, it, it’s very good to see you too, Ms. Dupain-Cheng,” Henri stuttered. “You know, not...uh, not dead.”

“Why, thank you, Henri, it’s very good to _be_ not dead. How are your mothers?”

“Mom!” Emma whirled around. “We do not have _time_ for small talk! Aren’t you supposed to be helping Grandma pack?”

“Oh, I think we’re all finished with that, Adele’s just bringing the last box from-here, see?” Emma’s grandmother entered the space from the east hallway, took a second to appraise the situation, then looked at Emma.

“Emma,” she said calmly, “I really wouldn’t have thought I’d need to explain to you why now is a less than appropriate time for having a friend over.”

“I forgot to cancel!” Emma snapped, exasperated. “I kind of had bigger things to worry about! I’m taking him back now, okay? Rajji, feathers out!” Before anyone else could say another word, Emma had transformed, grabbed Henri’s hand, and disappeared with him.

Henri blinked rapidly as they reappeared in his bedroom. “Wow, warn a guy next time you do that,” he said weakly.

Emma bit her lip. “Sorry.”

Henri gave her a half-grin. “It’s fine,” he reassured her. “So… uh… question.”

“Just one?” Emma asked wryly.

“Uh, you know, if ‘What the hell?’ counts as just one then, yeah, just one.”

Emma took a steadying breath. “We faked our parents’ deaths,” she said. “And I’m really, _really_ sorry I had to lie about something that awful to you, but we did what we had to do to make sure nobody figured out who they really are.”

Henri was silent for a moment. “Ladybug and Chat Noir?”

Emma nodded. “Yeah. To be fair,” she added defensively, “we didn't _know_ Mom and Dad were still alive. We knew they weren't killed on Occupation Day, but we had no idea what the Order was doing with the superheroes, or if they were even still being kept alive or not, until Mom showed up on Friday.”

“Emma, even if you had known, nobody’s going to be mad at you for lying about it,” Henri said, as though the idea was absurd. “You know that, right? I mean, you guys have been fighting the Order for months, keeping people safe, you're _heroes_ , of course you couldn't let anybody know the truth.”

“Yeah, I guess you're right,” Emma said.

“So… your dad’s alive, too?” Henri asked hopefully.

“Um. Well, technically all we know is he was alive four days ago,” Emma said. “He helped my mom escape. But I don't know… I mean, they might have figured out he helped her by now, I don't know what they’ll do to him, I can't,” Emma sat down on the edge of Henri’s bed and tried to slow her breathing down, “I just don't think I can think about it, you know? Not, uh, not until we can do something about it. Which will be soon, hopefully, but not until Paris is safe first.”

Henri sat down next to Emma and put a hand on her shoulder. “I’m so sorry,” he said, “but I’m sure he’s-”

“Anyway,” Emma interrupted, “there was a broadcast with a picture of Mom. They still don’t know who she _is_ , but eventually someone’s going to recognize her picture and report it, and then the Order will realize that we lied about her dying last August. So before that happens, we need to disappear.”

Henri nodded slowly. “Right,” he said. “I’m… I’m not going to see you for a while, am I?”

Emma shook her head. “Not until Paris is a free city again.”

“When will that be?”

“Oh, you know. Either by the end of the week or, uh… never.”

Henri stared at Emma in shock for a moment, but then his expression cleared and he grinned at her again. “Then I’m looking forward to seeing you in a week,” he said. “We can, uh, reschedule our date.”

Emma blushed. “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” she said.

“Are you kidding? Of course you'll succeed. You guys are amazing. _You’re_ amazing. You're the smartest, bravest hero Paris has ever-”

Impulsively, and without making any conscious decision to do so, Emma leaned over and kissed Henri before he could finish the sentence. She had a brief moment of wondering if there wasn't something wrong with having her first kiss while she was transformed, and not her ‘real’ self, before she managed for once in her life to shut her brain off and actually enjoy the moment.

Emma’s brain only stayed off for so long, though, before it reminded her that she didn't exactly have all day. She pulled back gently, looking into Henri’s eyes as they opened. “See you in a week,” Emma whispered, grinning for a moment before disappearing.

 

* * *

 

“Can you give me a moment, sweetheart?” Emma’s grandmother looked around and sighed heavily.

“Is there something else you want to bring?” Emma asked. “We have time, everything’s moved and Aunt Alya says the Order still hasn't figured out-”

“No,” Adele said gently. “We can't bring the whole house with us, after all. I just want to take one last look around. In case it's the last one I get.” She looked over at her husband. “Remember when we moved in?”

Emma’s grandfather nodded. “I do,” he said. “It was a rather dramatic upgrade at the time, if I recall correctly. The things from our apartment barely filled a few of the rooms.”

Adele grinned. “We filled the rest of them soon enough,” she said. She looked around again. “Forty-six years,” she murmured. “It wasn't always the happiest place during all that time, I know, but it was always home.”

“No,” Gabriel replied, and Adele raised an eyebrow questioningly. “Not for four of those years, it wasn't.”

Adele looked away. “Oh,” she said softly.

Gabriel walked to her side and put an arm around her shoulder. “What I mean,” he said, “is that we are not abandoning our home. Home has always, for me, been simply wherever we are together.”

Adele smiled up at her husband, then brushed a tear away and looked back at Emma. “Okay,” she said. “I'm ready to go.”

Emma took each of her grandparent’s hands, and then next moment they were with the rest of the family in the modest living room, now filled with boxes, of the safe house Alya had directed them to.

“Is that everyone?” Alya asked, looking around the room. “Okay, great. This house has been abandoned for the entire Occupation, and it’s outside the city limits, so you should be safe for now. The nearest neighbor isn’t close enough to notice anything suspicious, but just in case keep the blinds down and avoid using lights in rooms that face the road, got it? And no going outside, obviously, and call me if you’re worried about anything at all-”

“We’ll be fine, Alya,” Marinette interrupted. “Really, I can’t thank you enough, this is perfect.”

Alya glanced around. “It’s a little cramped,” she said apologetically. Marinette snorted.

“For them, maybe,” she said, rolling her eyes at her children. “Not all of us spent the last four months living in a mansion.”

Alya laughed. “Right, right. Well, anyway, there are two bedrooms upstairs, one down here, and two couches. Just enough sleeping space for everyone, although you’ll have to figure out who gets stuck on a couch.”

“At my age,” Gabriel said, “I’m not sure I’m capable of sleeping on a couch without risking permanent spinal damage.”

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous, darling,” his wife replied, “your age has nothing to do with it. At your height, you’ve never been capable of sleeping on a couch.”

“You four take the rooms upstairs,” Marinette said decisively. “The kids and I can figure the rest out down here.”

Adele nodded, then hugged Alya while her husband grabbed their suitcase and headed for the stairs. “Thank you,” she said.

Ferd reached for his and Jonathan’s shared suitcase, then immediately made a face and put it back down. “Too heavy, you carry it.”

Jonathan picked the suitcase up, then glared at his husband. “It’s too heavy because _someone_ packed it full of history books even though it’s only supposed to contain essentials.”

“You got to bring your entire library-”

“-because unlike your Waterloo encyclopedia, it’s actually a vital resource to the success of the resistance movement-”

“-and I packed half of it up for you, so I think the least you can do is carry a suitcase with two or three little books in it.”

Jonathan raised an eyebrow. “Try again,” he said.

“The least you can do is carry a suitcase with five or six medium-sized books in it,” Ferd amended.

“Absolutely not.”

Ferd sighed. “Okay, Jonathan, you know I hate playing this card, but you’re not really leaving me any choice here-”

“Oh, for the love of-”

“But you _did_ akumatize me thirty years ago, and I distinctly recall you saying that means you owe me forever, so…” Ferd looked back at the suitcase expectantly.

Jonathan groaned and picked the suitcase back up. “Fine,” he said begrudgingly, heading for the stairs as Ferd followed, grinning.

Once they were gone, Alya turned to Marinette. “Does that work for all akuma victims, or just the ones he’s married to?” Marinette shrugged. “I guess he did give me and Nino his lair,” Alya continued. She glanced back at the staircase and shook her head. “Still don’t get those two,” she muttered to herself. “Oh, well.” She looked at Emma. “Can you take me back to the city?” she asked. “There’s still a lot to get done, but I want to give you guys at least a couple of hours to catch your breath and settle in before I drag you all back into everything.”

Emma nodded. “Of course,” she said. Alya gave Marinette one last, fierce hug, and then Emma took her hand and dropped Alya back off at one of her hideouts in Paris.

“Are you alright, sweetheart?” Marinette asked as Emma reappeared. “You’ve been doing a lot of teleporting today and this house isn’t very close to Paris. I know your brother said that was a problem a few months ago, you overexerting your powers-”

“Oh, no, Mom,” Emma said quickly, “this is nothing compared to the trips I was making back then, this is totally fine.” Emma looked at Dani. “Tell her.”

Instead, Dani raised an eyebrow. “You feel tired,” she said, to Emma’s annoyance. “Maybe you should lie down for a little bit.”

“It’s barely noon,” Emma protested. Marinette pulled her daughter close and kissed her forehead.

“It’s been a very busy morning,” Marinette said. “If your sister says you should rest, you should rest. Trust me,” she added, cutting off Emma’s objection before it began, “the world’s problems will still be here waiting for you when you wake up.”


	43. Monique Taubira

It started with the mandatory broadcast on Sunday.

“Do you guys recognize her?” Monique asked her parents, after listening to the brief description of the escaped resistance fighter. There had been an extremely pregnant pause.

“No,” Monique’s mother finally said, “no, we don’t.” She then shut the TV off abruptly, and before Monique could ask any more follow-up questions her father insisted she go up to her room and finish her homework for Monday. Monique considered pointing out that it was still technically winter break, and she didn’t _have_ any homework to finish, but since her parents were obviously lying to her, she decided to go upstairs without argument.

It wasn’t the first time something like this had happened, since the Occupation had begun. Monique generally didn’t care for her parents being overprotective, but given the circumstances it was hard to blame them.

Besides, they were incredibly easy to eavesdrop on, so when they saw something on the news that upset them, something they didn’t want Monique to know about, it was the easiest thing in the world to simply leave the room when asked, circle back around the upstairs hallway, to the A/C vent, and listen to them talking about it in the kitchen.

Monique was pretty sure her parents had some connection to the Resistance. Not a big one-they didn’t go missing during attacks and they certainly had never harbored anyone in the house, but Monique’s mother always seemed to know when the next broadcast would be, and on more than one occasion she'd forbidden Monique from going out for no apparent reason, mere hours before some public Resistance attack.

“... _any_ idea she was still alive?” Monique heard her father saying quietly.

“None,” Monique's mother replied. “Do you think… do you think her husband’s also-”

“It seems too good to be true, doesn't it? And when's the last time something that seemed too good to be true was actually…” Monique’s father trailed off. “What happens when they finally identify her? What happens to the people who knew her?”

“It was a terrible picture,” Monique's mother said firmly. “It was a terrible picture, and she's been dead for months. We had no reason to suspect anything. That's what we say. And just to be safe, we’re not going to say another word about it. We didn't recognize the woman from the broadcast, and that's all there is to it.” Monique heard her mother stand up and start to leave the kitchen, so she quickly made her way back to her room. Whatever her parents had been talking about, they clearly wouldn’t be discussing it any further.

 

* * *

 

Monique had stopped thinking about the broadcast by school the next day, so when everyone was acting strangely there, too, it took her a little while to make the connection.

“Alright,” Ms. Carmichael said, after entering a classroom that was oddly quiet for the first day after winter vacation, “let’s get started, class, we’ve got a lot to-”

“Danielle’s not here yet,” Monique interrupted. What little talking there’d been in the room died abruptly, and Monique could have sworn she felt the class as a single unit suddenly holding its collective breath. “And class doesn’t start for a few minutes, so…”

“Well… you can just catch her up if she shows up later,” Ms. Carmichael said awkwardly, before quickly beginning the lesson.

The moment that class let out for lunch, Monique was out of the room and making her way to Mr. Dubois’ classroom, listening for either Emma or Louis in the crowd of exiting students. Instead of hearing either of them, though, she heard-

“Monique!” Emma’s friend Jenny pushed through the crowd and was quickly at Monique’s side. “Hey, was Dani in class today?”

The pit of Monique’s stomach dropped. “No. Were Emma or Louis-”

“No,” Jenny interrupted. “And everyone’s acting really weird about it and nobody will tell me what’s going on. So what gives?”

“I have no idea,” Monique said, and Jenny groaned.

“Ugh. Fine, don’t tell me,” she muttered, while starting to turn away. “I thought at least _you_ might-”

“No, Jenny, wait,” Monique said quickly, grabbing Jenny’s arm before she could leave. “I mean it, I have no idea. And nobody will tell me anything, either.”

“Oh,” Jenny said. “Sorry, I just figured all the locals knew what was happening.”

“Not me,” Monique said. “And I don't think everyone knows, but a lot of people clearly know something.”

“Hmm.” Jenny was silent for a moment, and then she started looking around. “You know who would probably know something,” she said, mostly to herself, “is… hey! Henri!”

By the time Henri reached them, the crowds of students had mostly thinned as everyone left for lunch. “Hi, Jenny,” he said pleasantly. “What’s up?”

“You saw Emma yesterday, right?” Jenny asked.

“Uhhh…” Henri’s tone completely changed in an instant. The fear and hesitation were impossible to miss. “No?”

“You didn’t? She said you two had plans. Did she cancel?”

“Um,” Henri said uselessly. “Yes?”

“You don’t sound very sure,” Monique said, annoyed. “Don’t you know if you saw her or not?”

“And why isn’t she in school today?” Jenny added.

“She’s… sick,” Henri said, sounding very much like he’d rather be anywhere else.

“Dani and Louis, too?” Monique asked.

“Uh huh. Yeah.”

“Well, in that case,” Jenny said, “I guess Monique and I will swing by the mansion and drop off their homework so they can-”

“No!” Henri interrupted frantically. Monique raised an eyebrow at him. “I mean… they’re contagious. So, you know, I wouldn’t go over there. Like, at all. Wouldn’t go anywhere near the place, if I were you.”

“Wow,” Jenny said, “Emma’s a lucky woman.”

“Huh?”

“Oh, it’s just my mother always said the secret to a happy marriage was to marry a terrible liar,” Jenny said lightly. Monique was pretty sure she could actually hear Henri’s face turn red.

“Look,” he said, dropping his voice to a whisper, “just… trust me, you do not want to keep asking anybody else questions about this. Or go over there. Or go out at all this week, actually. Just, you know, stay at home whenever you’re not at school, okay?” Before either of the girls could respond, Henri turned around and quickly left.

“What the hell was that about?” Jenny asked, annoyed. “Why is everyone acting so _weird_?”

“I’m not sure,” Monique said. “But I think…” she hesitated. “Is that guard-”

“Here.” Jenny offered Monique her elbow, and the two of them quickly made their way to an abandoned back corner of the hallway. “Okay, I don’t think anyone can hear us back here,” Jenny said, her voice low.

“Right,” Monique whispered, leaning against the wall. “I think… I think it might have something to do with yesterday’s broadcast.”

“About the escaped rebel?” Jenny asked, confused. “How could it?”

“I don’t know, but my parents started acting weird when it aired, and now everyone here’s acting weird, too, so… you didn’t recognize her, did you?”

Jenny scoffed. “I don’t recognize anybody outside of school or the hotel, you know that.”

“Right.” Monique tapped her fingers against the wall nervously. “What did she look like?”

“Um. I don’t know, it wasn’t a great picture. She was, like, my mom’s age maybe? White, with shoulder-length dark hair. Know anyone who looks like that who’s connected to the Agrestes?”

Monique shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t actually think too much about what people look like.”

“Oh.” Jenny sighed. “Maybe it’s a coincidence,” she said. “Your parents acting weird about her and everyone at school acting weird about the Agrestes. I mean, can you actually imagine them connected to the Resistance? Their grandfather’s on the _Council_. And Dani got in huge trouble with their grandparents when she mouthed off to the guard on the first day of school. They’re way too paranoid to-”

“Maybe they’re paranoid _because_ they’ve got some connection to the Resistance,” Monique said, thinking of her own mother’s ever-increasing protectiveness. “Can you pull up a picture of her and check again? She’s gotta be up on the Wanted site by now.”

“Sure.” Jenny pulled out her phone and softly tapped at it for a few moments. “Yeah, I don’t… this is a _really_ bad picture, Monique.”

“And it’s _just_ a picture? No info?”

“Nothing specific. ‘Dangerous, escaped rebel’.”

“Why wouldn’t they release her name?” Monique asked.

Jenny shrugged. “Maybe they only recently arrested her, in the middle of an attack or something, and she escaped before they could do an ID?”

“No,” Monique said slowly. “I overheard my parents say a couple of things before they decided it was safer to stop talking about it. Not much, but they thought she’d been dead for months. Whatever she did, it was at the beginning of the Occupation.”

“I don’t know how _anybody_ recognizes her from this,” Jenny muttered. “I’m not even sure she’s white, now that I’m looking at it. She might be Asian.”

Monique froze. “Could she be half-Chinese?”

“Maybe, I don’t know.” Jenny looked up. “Why, you know who she is?”

For a few seconds, Monique was speechless. “That… that sounds like their mom.”

“Their mom’s dead,” Jenny said immediately. “She died before the Occupation even started.”

“Yeah,” Monique said slowly. “That's what they told everyone. Even though no one I know actually heard about it until _after_ the Occupation began. Not even me, and Dani’s my best friend. I thought it was weird, but the whole world had gone insane so it didn't really stand out at the time, you know?” She paused. “Is that memorial for Mr. Agreste still up? With the family photo and everything?”

“I think so.” The girls made their way down the hall, to the spot near the principal’s office, with the modest In Memorandum engraved picture of the beloved teacher and his family hanging on the wall. Jenny stopped short once they got close enough to see it.

“Well?”

“There's a… resemblance,” Jenny said hesitantly. The two girls stood in silence in the empty hallway for a minute.

“Jesus,” Monique finally muttered.

“If they'd been arrested,” Jenny said slowly, “at the beginning of the Occupation, they would have been part of the mass pardon.”

“Maybe they weren't arrested,” Monique said nervously. “Maybe something worse happened to them. Something the Agrestes had to cover up as quickly as possible.” She bit her lip. “It would explain why the Order doesn't know her name. The escaped rebel’s.”

Jenny considered the implications of this. “But they already figured out… I mean, they already identified-”

“Yeah,” Monique interrupted. “Thanks to _Emma_.”

“Oh. _Oh_. Wow.” Jenny took a deep breath. “I think I'm starting to get why nobody’s willing to talk to us about this.”

“Yeah.”

“What do we do?”

Monique shrugged. “Go home, get lunch, pretend we didn't figure anything out? Cling to plausible deniability if anyone questions us? What else _can_ we do?”

Jenny sighed. “Yeah,” she said softly, “I guess you’re right.”

 

* * *

 

Monique managed to get through the rest of the day, though later she barely remembered a moment of it. She went home for lunch, she finished out the rest of the school day, she came home, all while barely interacting with anyone. Not that anyone else was interested in interacting with her, either. Everyone was going through the motions, preoccupied, silent. It felt like the unsettling calm before a hurricane.

Monique went straight up to her room after getting home, muttering something to her parents on the way about getting a head start on her homework. She’d been reading, or trying to read, her literature assignment for about ten minutes when, quite suddenly, she heard multiple people breathing about a meter away from her bed. She immediately screamed and threw her book as hard as she could.

“Ow! Jesus, how is your aim so good?”

“ _Louis_?” Monique said incredulously.

“Oh my God, you got him right in the nose with the spine, it was _beautiful_ ,” Dani said appreciatively.

“Monique?” her mother shouted up from downstairs. “Is everything alright up there?”

Monique took a deep breath and tried to slow her heartbeat down. “Fine, Mom!” she shouted back. “Just… just felt a spider, that’s all!”

“Nice save,” said a voice Monique didn’t recognize.

“Who the hell are you?” Monique demanded, glaring.

“Who the hell am I?” the girl repeated, sounding both confused and offended.

“You’re still transformed, genius,” Dani said.

“So? My voice doesn’t change.”

“Neither does your appearance,” Louis said, “but people can’t recognize you from that, either. It wouldn’t be very good identity protection if voice identification still worked. Sorry, Monique, that’s Emma. And we didn’t mean to scare you, but-”

“That’s not Emma, Emma’s-” Monique stopped talking abruptly as she realized she recognized the girl’s voice after all. She’d known it for years-it was almost identical to Dani’s, but slightly dryer, more subdued. How the hell… “Okay,” Monique said slowly, “one of you three better explain what you’re doing here, and what’s going on, and how you managed to just appear in my room out of fucking _nowhere_.”

“Right, right,” Louis said. “Um. Well, I’m here because I need to give you something, and Emma’s here because she’s the only one who can teleport, which is how we appeared out of nowhere, and Dani… Dani has absolutely no reason to be here whatsoever but she insisted on coming anyway.”

“She’s my best friend!” Dani said indignantly. “And I’ve been on you to do this for _months_. Like I was going to let you two be here for this and leave me out of it.”

“ _Anyway_ ,” Louis said pointedly, “What’s going on is… well, kind of a long story that we don’t really have time for, the Order might already be tracking us so we need to leave soon, but your kwami can fill in all the blanks.”

“My what?”

“Oh. Right,” Louis said. “I’ll get to that. Sorry, I haven’t done this before, I’m probably doing it all wrong.”

Emma scoffed. “The last Guardian just left the boxes out for people to find. You are definitely clearing that very low bar.”

“Well, I’m starting to understand the appeal of that approach,” Louis muttered. He took a deep breath. “Okay, to begin… um, you know the broadcast yesterday?”

“Yeah,” Monique said. “Wait-is your mom Ladybug?”

There was a pause. “Uh huh,” Louis finally said. “Yeah, uh… jeez, has everybody figured that out by now?”

Monique shrugged. “Nobody’s willing to talk about it, but everyone was really freaked out at school. And once Jenny and I figured out who the woman in the broadcast looked like, it wasn’t too hard to connect the rest of the dots. So… yeah, probably. Everybody who knows her, anyway.”

“Great,” Louis muttered. “Okay, yeah, our mom is Ladybug, and about a week ago our dad helped her escape from where all the old superheroes are being held. And now that the broadcast aired, it won’t be long before someone tells the Order who she is, so both of our parents’ secret identities are shot. And there’s a pretty decent chance that after the Order figures out who our parents are, they figure out who _we_ are.”

“Who you…” Monique trailed off. “You three are the new superheroes,” she said flatly.

“Mm hmm. And maybe the Order won’t figure that out, but I can’t take that chance. Paris _needs_ a superhero whose identity hasn’t been compromised, Monique. And that’s why I’m here.” Monique heard Louis start rifling through his messenger bag. “I want you to be that new superhero.”

Monique blinked. “Me?”

“I know it’s a lot to ask, especially now, but… trust me, you’re a really good fit for the Bee Miraculous. And you’d be such an amazing hero, I know you would. If you need time to think about-”

“I’ll do it,” Monique interrupted quickly. Louis breathed a huge sigh of relief.

“Thank you,” he said. “Here.” Monique held out her hand, and a moment later felt Louis place a small hexagonal box in her waiting palm. Monique traced her fingertips lightly over its surface. It was wooden, cool to the touch, and the top had some intricate design carved into its surface. “Open that once we’re gone, and Apiinii will explain everything I couldn’t, okay?” Before Monique could respond, Dani let out an excited cry and threw her arms around her friend.

“I’m so excited for you!” she gushed. “I mean, okay, obviously everything’s serious and scary and awful but trust me, other than all that you are going to _love_ -”

"Can we go now?” Emma interrupted, annoyed. “There’s a decent chance the Order knows they should be tracking us by now, and if they track us back _here_ the entire point of giving Monique her Miraculous is completely lost. Oh, but congrats Monique, don’t think I’m not excited to have you on the team, I just think-”

“Fine, fine.” Dani quickly tightened her hug, which Monique returned, before stepping back towards her siblings. The next instant all three were gone. The silence in their absence was sudden and eerie.

Exhaling slowly, Monique turned her attention back to the box Louis had given her. Bracing herself, she flipped the lid open.

Despite popular misconceptions about what blindness was like, Monique actually did have some vision. It just wasn’t good enough to be of any use to her. But she could detect extreme contrast, and when she opened the box there was an immediate flash of light so bright she almost dropped it in surprise. Blinking, Monique reached into the box and pulled out the item within. She ran her fingertips over it, scraped a nail over the teeth of the thing and listened to the low hum this produced.

“Nice, isn’t it?” said a small voice a few centimeters away from Monique’s ear. Monique just barely bit back a second scream.

“Apiinii?”

“Correct,” Apiinii replied, now a few centimeters away from her other ear. Monique turned towards the voice, but it continued to move around her. “And you’re Monique. I can see why the Guardian likes you. Your living space is a lot more tidy than my previous holders’,” she added approvingly. “I loved them all, of course, but they tended to be a bit… laid back. An irritating quality, but it balances out the Miraculous I suppose.”

“I’m laid back,” Monique said defensively. “I just need to know where everything is, that’s all.”

“Well, that’s hardly an exclusive trait, and yet…” Apiinii trailed off, and when she spoke again her voice came from right in front of Monique’s nose. “Yes, you’ll do.”

“Stop moving,” Monique snapped. “What… what _are_ you?”

“A kwami,” Apiinii replied, as though it were obvious. “All the Miraculouses come with them.”

“Oh.” Monique reached a hand out hesitantly. “Can… can I…”

Apiinii sighed. “Don’t make a habit of it,” she said begrudgingly, and Monique reached up towards the voice.

The kwami was about three inches big, with a giant head, antennae, and a soft, fuzzy collar around her neck. As Monique ran a finger over it, Apiinii started buzzing softly, not unlike a purr. Monique grinned. “Are the other kwami as cute as you?” she asked.

“No,” Apiinii replied matter-of-factly. “I’m the cutest. Are you done yet?” Monique pulled her hand back. “Good. If you’re done lollygagging, we should get started. Put your Miraculous on.” Monique picked up the comb and slid it into her hair, right up into the base of her high puff. “There isn’t much time to get you up to speed with all the incredible powers I’ll be giving you,” Apiinii continued, “and there’s a job to do.”

“A job?” Monique asked. “What job?”

Once again, Monique heard her kwami buzz with satisfaction. “We’re taking Paris back,” Apiinii said smugly.


	44. The Battle for Paris: Part One

“Are we there yet?” Adele asked, addressing no one in particular.

“You know everything we know,” Jonathan replied, his voice flat. He glanced at his sister. “You don't look good.”

“I'll be fine.”

“You don't _feel_ fine.”

“Sorry.” Adele closed her eyes. Her face was pale, her breathing shallow. Sitting next to her, Gabriel reached over and, somewhat awkwardly, took her hands in his, squeezing them tightly. Adele kept her eyes closed, but her breathing steadied. “Thank you,” she whispered, squeezing back.

For the next ten minutes or so, the only noise in the back of the armored car was the sound of Adele’s and Gabriel’s handcuffs clinking together softly.

“Is it just me,” Ferd said, “or does the air in here feel weird? Like it's full of static electricity or something.”

“Anti-magic field,” his husband said. “It's in the sides of the car.”

“I can't feel anything,” Gabriel said.

“Neither can I, but we don't generate any kind of magic energy,” Jonathan said. “Ferd does.”

The rest of the drive was passed in complete silence.

Upon reaching their destination, the four of them were awkwardly dragged out, blinking in the sudden light of the outdoors.

“The Luxembourg?” Jonathan said, confused, as they were led to the entrance. “Not, like, a police station? I thought-”

“You thought the vigilante traitors in your family would be able to break you out before the Order got a chance to question you?” his guard interrupted. “Nice try. I’d like to see any of them break through _these_ defenses.”

 

* * *

 

“Mr. Benavente,” Ferd’s interrogator started, sitting down across from him, “do you have any idea why you're here?”

“Wish I did,” Ferd replied nervously. “I'm guessing it has something to do with my in-laws?”

“Your guess would be correct. Would it surprise you to learn that they are both confirmed traitors, and will likely be sentenced to death before the end of the day?”

Ferd’s eyes widened. “Are you sure?”

“You think we’ve made an error?”

“Oh, well…” Ferd looked down, “I mean, I don't actually know them that well. Jonathan’s not really as close to his family as I am to mine, we barely ever see them. Honestly, it really took me by surprise when Jonathan said they'd be staying at our place for a while.”

The interrogator began to take notes. “That's unusual, then?”

“It's never happened before. Never spent more than a couple hours around them at a time, actually.”

“Well, Mr. Benavente, it seems very likely to me that you and your husband are mostly innocent in all this, but if I'm going to prove that I'll need your full cooperation. Full disclosure, understand?”

Ferd nodded. “Prove I don't know anything by telling you everything. Got it.”

“Yes, that's the-” the interrogator stopped suddenly and narrowed his eyes at Ferd. “Was that supposed to be _funny_?” Ferd shook his head. “Good.” The man began flipping through the file he’d brought in with him.

“Can I ask something?” Ferd asked.

“Huh?” The interrogator looked up, surprised.

“Sorry, I’ll be quick, it’s just, this is the first chance I’ve had to ask anyone and it’s been driving me crazy since Day One. Why the twenty-eighth?”

“The… of August?” the interrogator asked, confused. “Is there some significance to that date?”

“None. The twenty- _fifth_ , on the other hand, would have been perfect. You guys missed the hundred-year anniversary of the liberation of Paris during World War Two by _three days_. Paris could have been a free city for exactly a hundred years, but instead it was free for a hundred years and three days. Doesn’t that drive you crazy?”

The interrogator raised an eyebrow and looked back at his file. “Right,” he muttered to himself, “the history professor.” He looked up at Ferd. “Mr. Benavente, Paris is still a free city, do you understand me?”

Ferd sighed. “Of course,” he said. “My mistake.”

 

* * *

 

“Are you ill?” Adele’s interrogator asked, as though the matter were purely academic to her.

“Um,” Adele took as deep a breath as she could manage, “not exactly, I just get… anxious… when I feel confined.”

The interrogator pulled out a file and began to flip through it. “Anxious? Is that what you call a PTSD-triggered panic attack?”

“I haven’t had a panic attack in ten years,” Adele said.

“Well, I could hardly blame you for having one now,” the interrogator said conversationally, as she continued to study the file. “Your psychiatrist listed both confined spaces and handcuffs as triggers.” She glanced around the small room, then at Adele’s hands currently cuffed to the table. “Check and check.” She looked back at the file. “You know, there isn’t nearly as much information in here as we were hoping for.”

Adele shrugged. “Dr. Blanchet wasn’t much for taking notes, I guess.”

“Mmm. Too bad she retired and moved to Montreal, or she’d be in here answering our questions, too.” The interrogator put the file aside and looked at Adele. “Ready to begin?”

Adele nodded. “Yes, let’s,” she agreed. “The anchor points of the security spells for this base, are they in this wing?”

The interrogator blinked. “Excuse me?”

“And are they on this floor? Above us, or below?”

“Mrs. Agreste-”

“One floor up? Two? Three?”

“Mrs. Agreste,” the interrogator snapped, “you seem to be very confused about who is asking questions here and who is answering them.”

“Oh, of course,” Adele said apologetically. “How silly of me.”

 

* * *

 

After about ten minutes of waiting, the door of Gabriel’s interrogation room opened and a familiar face looked in.

“Frederick,” Gabriel said calmly. “Fancy running into you here.”

“Oh, I requested you specifically, Gabriel,” Frederick said, sitting down across from Gabriel. “After all, we’ve been friends for four months now. Or at least, I thought we were.”

“Really?” Gabriel leaned back, or did his best while cuffed to the table. “Even for an officer of the Order that is, I must say, a shocking level of self-delusion.”

“You invited me into your home-”

“I did no such thing.”

“-sat me down, had your granddaughter feed me that story about Elizabeth Renaud being Ladybug.” Frederick shook his head. “How you all must have laughed once I’d left.”

Gabriel raised an eyebrow. “I assure you, Frederick,” he said slowly, “I have not laughed once since you and your fellow vermin infested my city and kidnapped my son.”

“Oh, good,” Frederick said, “you're admitting your son is Chat Noir. That should save time. Maybe we can just skip to the end, then. Where are your grandchildren?”

Gabriel shrugged. “With their mother, I expect.”

Frederick glared. “And where is their mother?”

“I couldn't say.”

Frederick sighed. “That's very disappointing, Gabriel.”

“I’ve disappointed you? And here I thought there would be no upside to my arrest.”

There was a pause, and then Frederick abruptly struck Gabriel across the face and grabbed his shirt. “One way or another,” Frederick hissed, “I am getting what I need out of you, Gabriel Agreste. I already have more than enough evidence to have you and your wife executed for treason. So if you care about surviving this-”

Gabriel cut him off with a scoff. “You have nothing. I suppose it hardly matters, though. It's not as though the Order actually requires evidence before executing a citizen for anything.”

“So confident, so superior. I suppose you think you removed everything incriminating from your ridiculously oversized mansion before abandoning it?” Frederick leaned over the desk. “You could have removed every single object under that roof and it wouldn't have saved you.” Frederick let go of Gabriel and leaned back in his chair, then reached into his pocket and pulled out a clear glass orb. “Do you know what this is?”

Gabriel glanced at the item. “A paperweight? Not mine, I'm certain, although I suppose I wouldn't object to possessing it. You may have noticed when you were ransacking my office that my home decor aesthetic runs towards the monochromatic.”

Frederick grinned. “Oh but that’s the thing, Gabriel. This object isn't monochromatic. Not when it's in _your_ office, at any rate. This is much more than a paperweight. This is the result of months of hard work and research, the culmination of all our efforts to finally rid this city of the scourge of vigilantism. This item, you see, can detect Miraculous energy.” Gabriel said nothing, kept his face a mask. “In my presence it is totally clear, because I am not a traitor. Inside your home, however, it was-well, I'll just show you.” Frederick placed the device on the table right in front of Gabriel, and instantly the clear glass swirled blue, purple, and green. “My word, all three of them,” Frederick said smugly. “Not that there was any doubt, but it is very clear now that the new vigilantes are your grandchildren.”

“That proves nothing,” Gabriel said. “The superheroes are anonymous. They could be anyone I know, I would have no way of-”

“That's what this is for,” Frederick interrupted, pulling out another orb. “We have dozens of these things, all of varying sensitivity. The one in front of you reacts to any recent prolonged exposure. This one, however, will only react to an actual Miraculous holder. And once we catch your grandchildren, they'll be tested. I have every confidence they'll be found guilty and executed by the end of the week.”

“Touch any one of them,” Gabriel said, his voice low and threatening, “and it will be the last of what I can only assume is an entire lifetime of idiotic actions you take.”

“You really don't get it, do you?” Frederick asked. “You _lost_. It's _over_. There's no threatening, no negotiating, there is _nothing_ you can do.”

“Then why the hell am I even here?”

“Tell me where they are,” Frederick said, leaning over Gabriel yet again, “and I'll only kill the mother.”

Gabriel scoffed. “You must be extremely worried, if you're offering to pardon three superheroes.”

“Pardon? Hardly. They'll be locked up with the other vigilantes.”

Gabriel raised an eyebrow. “Based on the condition my daughter-in-law was in when she returned from that hell,” he said, “I'm not at all convinced that sending her children there isn't just a slightly slower form of execution as well.”

“You don't have time to argue, Gabriel,” Frederick said. “This offer expires within the hour, do you hear me? After that, I will find your grandchildren, I will use this device on them, and once it turns they'll be…” Frederick trailed off as the orb he just held up to Gabriel’s face turned a solid deep blue. Both men stared at the glass orb silently for a moment, and then Gabriel looked at Frederick.

“Congratulations,” he said dryly. “You've captured Hera.”

Frederick continued to stare at the orb, bewildered. “You're not Hera,” he finally said. “You can't be.”

“Whyever not?”

“I’ve seen Hera, she can't be more than twenty.”

“Well, that's quantic identity protection for you.”

“She's a _girl_.”

“It's a very good disguise,” Gabriel replied. He looked back at the orb. “The way I see it, Frederick, there are two explanations. Either you've caught Hera, in which case I'm sure your superiors will reward you handsomely. Or that trinket in your hand is a useless piece of junk incapable of accurately detecting anything. I don't know how the Order deals with that level of incompetence, but I can't imagine they do it lightly.”

Frederick paled, then abruptly struck Gabriel across the face with the hand holding the orb, splitting his lip. “I'll be right back,” Frederick muttered before quickly leaving the room.

 

* * *

 

Jonathan’s interrogator re-entered his room. “Mariposa?” she asked sarcastically.

“Yes?”

The woman shook her head. “No,” she said confidently. “No, you're not Mariposa.”

“Huh. According to that little doohickey you've got, I am,” Jonathan said. “Is it broken?”

“Not at all, it’s working perfectly. It's simply that we didn't realize it was incapable, at this setting, of distinguishing between _current_ Miraculous holders and former ones. But I imagine you’d already guessed that… Hawkmoth.”

Jonathan stared at the woman for a moment, and then a grin slowly crept across his face. “Congratulations,” he said, “you found me out.”

“Imagine my surprise,” she replied. “Let me guess… your sister. Butterfly, evidently. Lost in the line of duty all those years ago, and you went after her. The protective big brother. And when you found her Miraculous, becoming Hawkmoth was a means to acquiring the power you needed to find her. Am I warm?”

“Burning.”

“I can't wait to hear the full story.”

Jonathan blinked. “Why on earth would I tell it?”

“Oh, you're about to be very cooperative,” the interrogator said. “I think you'll be quite willing to work with me.”

“Why? Because we’re both villains?”

The woman's smile faltered. “I am not a villain.”

“Oh, that's right. You're a, what do they call it, a minion.” Jonathan shrugged. “Never bothered with them myself, but now that I'm watching you in action I'm beginning to see the appeal.”

“I suppose I’ll take that as a compliment,” the woman said dryly. “No, I think you’ll work with me because you strike me as practical. Willing to do what needs to be done. Unfettered by naive, backward notions of morality. Unlike the rest of your family.” She smiled. “And what an interesting family it is, too. Butterfly, Paon, Chat Noir, Ladybug… and Hawkmoth. Reunions must be awkward.”

Jonathan shrugged. “It's true,” he agreed, “I do have a slightly different perspective on things than the rest of my family. Superheroes tend toward the blindly idealistic.” He leaned forward. “But you've threatened people I care about and, well, I imagine this won't come as a surprise to you, but when the people I love are in danger I can get a little… unstable. Difficult to reason with.”

“Then let me put your mind at ease, Mr. Dumas. My superiors have very little interest in the people you actually care about. Don't get me wrong, they'd happily execute your sister and her husband for the crime of masked vigilantism, and you right along with them. And of course, revealing to the public that Hawkmoth is the brother of Butterfly, the uncle of Chat Noir, that is going to do _wonders_ for convincing the people of our empire that superheroes and supervillains are two sides of the same coin. But to be honest…” she shrugged. “How many people really remember Butterfly and Paon, over forty years later? How much of an impact is their execution _really_ going to have? And you, you're hardly better. Your little reign of terror only lasted a year, and that was almost thirty years ago. Now, Ladybug on the other hand… publicly executing Ladybug would be an entirely different matter.”

Jonathan raised an eyebrow. “You want me to lead you to Ladybug.”

“Your sworn nemesis in exchange for you and your sister. That seems like a very good deal to me. Hell, I'll even throw in your brother-in-law, too.” She leaned forward. “Thirty years ago you were willing to do whatever it took to save your sister. Are you a changed man now?”

“Hardly.” Jonathan considered the offer. “I want her grandkids pardoned, too,” he said. “She's crazy about them, you know? She'd never forgive me if I got them killed to save her.”

“Her grandchildren? You mean the most recent batch of vigilantes terrorizing Paris?” The interrogator shook her head. “Pardoning them is out of the question. And you're in no position to be negotiating.”

“I think I am,” Jonathan said. “You're desperate for information I have, and you must know you'll never get it out of Butterfly or Paon.”

The woman sighed. “No pardon,” she repeated, “but instead of an execution, I can make sure the children are imprisoned with the other vigilantes. That's not so bad, is it? They'll be with their father again. They'll have no idea who he is, of course, but still. It's better than being dead.”

“Technically.”

“I certainly hope I haven't misjudged you, Mr. Dumas,” the interrogator said, annoyed. “It would be disappointing if you couldn't be reasoned with after all, and I had to resort to cruder measures to get what I want from you.” She sighed wearily. “Well, at least we already have your husband in custody, that's one less step for-”

“What if…” Jonathan interrupted her before trailing off, uncertain.

“What if what?”

“What if I didn't want my brother-in-law pardoned? Just me and Adele. And the execution commuted to a life sentence for the kids, of course.”

The woman smiled. “I would be happy to arrange that,” she said, practically beaming. “I'm glad I wasn't wrong about you after all. As for what I need from you…”

“Inside left pocket of my jacket,” Jonathan said numbly, not meeting her gaze. “It's hidden, the officers who brought us in missed it. There's a piece of paper. Written on it is the address of the safe house Ladybug and her kids are hiding out at.”

Eagerly, the interrogator got up and walked around the table before pulling Jonathan's coat open and feeling inside. In no time she'd found the hidden pocket and pulled out the folded sheet of paper within.

The second she unfolded it, there was a loud popping noise and the woman collapsed in a dead faint. Jonathan watched her go down, then shook his head.

“You know,” he said, addressing her unconscious form, “I know I was a professional actor for over twenty years but come _on_ , it is really embarrassing for you that that actually worked.” Sighing, Jonathan pulled a paper clip off of the cuff of his sleeve and began to free himself.

About thirty seconds later, still working, he rolled his eyes as he felt an extremely smug presence approach the door.

“What is this,” his sister asked as she entered the room and quickly closed the door behind herself, “the sixth time I've rescued you?”

“No,” Jonathan said insistently, as he finally worked his way free of the cuffs, “no it is not, this falls firmly in the category of me rescuing myself, thank you very much. I tricked her, knocked her out, and freed myself. You don't get to claim credit just because you happened to reach the door first.”

“Agree to disagree.” Adele crossed the room and helped her brother lift the unconscious interrogator into the now empty chair, then cuffed the woman to the table as Jonathan began to search her. “What took you so long, anyway? I was hiding around the corner for ages, I was just about to come in and knock her out myself.”

“Your interrogator was a lot more credulous than mine, I guess,” Jonathan said, grabbing the unconscious woman’s standard-issue knockout wand that all Order personnel carried. “Her guard was too up, I could feel it, the spell wouldn’t have knocked her out if I’d tried it earlier. I had to play up the whole ‘supervillain betraying his family’ angle.” Jonathan rolled his eyes. “That reminds me, they know who we are.”

Adele sighed. “Yes, that came up. I can’t believe we forgot they were working on that stupid device.”

“I wouldn’t say we _forgot_ ,” Jonathan said defensively, as he grabbed the interrogator’s cell phone and kicked it across the room, out of reach. “Anyway, it doesn’t make a difference. They already know about Adrien and Marinette. Our identities are an afterthought. This was still the best plan we could have come up with.”

“True.”

Jonathan looked at Adele. “You’re feeling a lot better,” he observed.

“The Xanax I took before the Order showed up to arrest us finally kicked in, thank God,” Adele replied. “And getting out of the cuffs helped, too. Thanks again for showing me how to do that.”

Her brother nodded. “So, are we ready to go?” he asked. “Did you find out where the spell anchors are? And our husbands?”

“Yes, Jonathan, I did my job,” Adele said impatiently. She crossed back to the door and closed her eyes, concentrating on the surrounding emotional signatures. “Alright,” she said after a moment, “it’s clear. Let’s go.”

 

* * *

 

“- _will not hesitate_ to execute you for vigilantism and treason if you don’t start cooperating _right now_ , do you understand me?” Frederick shouted. Gabriel said nothing, and Frederick practically growled in frustration. “Or maybe I’ll just execute your vigilante wife right in front of you, how does that sound?” Gabriel’s glare deepened, but he remained silent. “I am not bluffing, Agreste, _where are your_ -” Frederick was cut off, quite suddenly, by a knock. He took a breath, calming himself down slightly, before turning around and going to the door.

He barely had enough time to recognize Adele, much less notice the knockout wand she’d taken from her interrogator, before everything went black.

“These things are single use only, right?” Adele asked, tossing the wand aside as her brother nodded.

“Isn’t that the guy who questioned Emma?” Jonathan asked, as they quickly stepped over Frederick’s body and closed the door. Adele shrugged, then looked over at her husband and gasped.

“Gabriel, your _face_!” She ran over. “What the hell did he-”

“It’s fine,” her husband interrupted. “Is everything going according to plan?”

“Yes, but…” Adele trailed off, shaking her head, as she began to free her husband. “I knew it was a bad idea for you to come, too,” she muttered. “We only needed-”

“As though I would ever again let you go on a mission without me,” Gabriel interrupted impatiently.

 

* * *

 

Ferd’s interrogator failed to notice the hopeful look that crossed Ferd’s face for a second when there was a knock at the door. He left the room for a few minutes, and returned in a noticeably better mood.

“Good news?” Ferd asked.

“Oh, very,” the interrogator replied. “It seems we’ve identified a rather dangerous figure. One you have something of a personal history with, actually. Hawkmoth. You were one of his victims, weren’t you?”

“I was,” Ferd said. “Gosh. Was catching him a high priority for the Order?”

“Well, ridding Europe of dangerous masked criminals is, of course. This specific one, admittedly, we stumbled upon rather accidentally.” The interrogator leaned forward. “I imagine you’re curious about his real identity?”

Ferd shrugged. “Honestly, I’m more interested in getting through this interrogation and going home as soon as possible, but-”

“Oh, I doubt you’ll feel that way once you find out who he is,” the interrogator said, biting back a grin. “You see, Hawkmoth is none other than your husband, Jonathan Dumas.”

Ferd was silent for a moment. “No,” he finally whispered, “no, that’s not true. That’s _impossible_.”

“I assure you, Mr. Benavente, we are quite certain of-”

“Oh, come on,” Ferd interrupted, annoyed. “Who doesn’t get that reference? It’s one of the most iconic scenes in cinematic history.”

The interrogator’s face fell. “You already knew.”

Ferd grinned. “Jonathan and I have been together for almost twenty years now,” he said. “I don't think there's anything you could tell me about him that I don't already know.”

“And you didn't think to mention that little fact at the start of this interview?”

“You didn't ask,” Ferd replied simply. His interrogator glared.

“And I suppose you expect me to believe that you knew he was Hawkmoth but somehow _didn't_ know that his nephew is Chat Noir? Or that his nephew’s wife is Ladybug?”

Ferd was silent for a few seconds. “You know, now that you mention it, it might have come up once or twice in the past two decades,” he admitted.

“That alone is grounds for _execution_ , Mr. Benavente, do you appreciate that?” The interrogator looked down at his file on Ferd, not bothering to hide his irritation or genuine confusion. “How does an akuma victim even wind up married to Hawkmoth?” he muttered, flipping through the pages.

“Oh, it’s a great story,” Ferd said eagerly. “See, back in 2017 someone hexed my parents’ B&B, because apparently 48-hour cancellation policies are just too confusing a concept for certain people to wrap their brains around, right?”

“Mr. Benavente-”

“Well, I say my parents’ B&B, my sister Isabella and her husband own it now, but back then-”

“Mr. Benavente-”

“Oh, I know _exactly_ what you're thinking. Ferdinand and Isabella? What's a Moroccan immigrant doing naming two of her kids after the monarchs who kicked the Moors out of Spain, right?”

“I was not-”

“Trust me, I asked way back in ‘85, never got much of an answer, honestly I think it was a complete accident, she did have five kids to name so I guess some weird coincidence was bound to-”

“ _Mr. Benavente_ ,” the interrogator snapped, “that was not in any way an invitation for you to give me your entire life story, do you understand me? I was merely… expressing confusion.”

“Oh,” Ferd said. “Well, he’s loaded, does that clear things up?”

“Excuse me?”

“Oh yeah, I know you wouldn't know it from looking at our apartment-well, unless you looked in the travel albums, we take a lot of vacations-but yeah, the guy inherited a fortune when he was twenty. And then five years later he invested most of it in the ground floor of Gabriel Agreste’s fashion empire of all things, if you can believe it.”

The interrogator raised his eyebrows. “You married a supervillain… one who victimized you personally… for his money?”

Ferd shrugged. “That and he's amazing in bed.”

“I- _what_?”

“Not that that's as much of a concern nowadays as it was ten or fifteen years ago, admittedly. I mean, at our age… it's not nothing, though, don't get me wrong, I'm seventy-two, I'm not _dead_ , you know?”

Ferd’s interrogator blinked, face turning red, but before he could respond there was another knock at the door. He quickly crossed the room to answer the door, and a second later was collapsed on the floor.

“ _Finally_ ,” Ferd said.

“Sorry we’re late,” Jonathan said, as he quickly entered, Adele and Gabriel close behind.

“Oh it’s fine, querido,” Ferd said. “It turns out I’m _really_ good at stalling.”

“Better than Gabriel,” Jonathan muttered as he began working on Ferd’s cuffs, and Ferd looked over Jonathan’s shoulder.

“Yikes,” Ferd said. “You okay?”

“I’ll live,” Gabriel replied dryly. “My interrogator felt personally offended by my actions, it seems.”

Nodding, Ferd turned back to Jonathan. “They know who you-”

“I know,” Jonathan interrupted. “They’ve got their Miraculous energy detectors up and running, apparently. It’s not ideal, but,” Jonathan shrugged, “not much to do other than stick to the plan.”

 

* * *

 

With Adele's empathy, navigating their way unseen through the halls was a cinch. In no time at all they'd reached the stairwell.

“Two floors up, you said?” Jonathan asked.

“Mmhmm.” Adele glanced at her husband, then took his hand as they went. “Just like the old days,” she murmured.

Gabriel glanced at the rest of their party. “I don't recall Jonathan ever bringing a paramour along,” he replied.

“Yeah, this is way better,” Jonathan said.

“You know, I'm just flattered to be included at all in this suicide mission,” Ferd said. “If you’d told me when I was twenty-five that one day I’d be on a vitally important mission with Butterfly, Paon and my husband… actually the word ‘husband’ might have been the most exciting part of that, but still.”

Two floors up, Adele held up a hand abruptly and the others stopped. She turned to Gabriel, then pointed at a spot about a foot to the right of the door. “Guard,” she whispered.

“Just one?” Adele nodded. Moving past her, Gabriel approached the stairwell exit and knocked on the door. A second later the guard opened the door, confused, and was immediately met with Gabriel’s fist. He went down immediately, and before he could get up Adele had grabbed his knockout wand off his hip and used it on him. The four of them sighed in relief, and then Gabriel winced and shook his hand. “Since when does punching someone hurt almost as much as being punched?” he muttered.

“Since… physics,” his wife replied. She narrowed her eyes. “Is that the first time you’ve ever punched someone out of transformation?”

“Evidently.”

They exited the stairwell, and Adele took a moment to scan the hallway before pointing to a room about three doors down. “That’s empty,” she whispered, and in no time they were all inside the room, a small dark office. Gabriel and Adele immediately grabbed the room’s desk and shoved it against the door as Jonathan turned to Ferd.

“You’re up,” Jonathan said to his husband, pulling out a small stack of papers from the hidden pocket on the inside right of his jacket and handing them over. “We should be close enough to the defense anchors. These are already in order from most to least important, so just get through as many as you can and I’ll check as you go.”

Nodding, Ferd pulled out a piece of chalk from his pocket and examined the spell written on the top sheet of paper. Kneeling down, he began to copy it on the surface of the floor. Jonathan joined him, watching his work closely, as Gabriel and Adele stayed near the door.

“They’re panicking,” Adele whispered, about five spells in. “They’ve figured out we escaped, they’re looking for us now.” Jonathan nodded, but kept his focus on the spells. For the next ten minutes, the only sound was Ferd’s piece of chalk scraping and squeaking across the floor, and Jonathan’s occasional correction to his work.

“Done,” Ferd finally said, dropping his piece of chalk as the last spell took hold.

“Really?” Jonathan looked over at the stack of papers, now completely exhausted. “Wow. And here I was sure we’d all be found and shot before you got through half of them.”

“So now what?” Adele asked.

Jonathan shrugged. “Wait for the Order to find us and shoot us, I guess.”

“You're not allowed to get shot, remember?” Ferd said. “I was very clear about never forgiving you if you die.”

“You were,” Jonathan agreed, “but I found a loophole. Getting you killed right along with me.”

Ferd grinned. “Damn, I didn't think of that,” he said. He slid across the floor next to Jonathan, who sighed.

“Look at what I dragged you into,” Jonathan said softly, leaning his head on Ferd’s shoulder. “I've been a blight on your entire life.”

“Oh, don't be ridiculous,” Ferd said cheerfully. “Our paths didn't cross until I was forty-three. You've been a blight on half my life at most.” Jonathan let out a low chuckle, and Ferd gently laced his fingers with Jonathan’s. “I wouldn't trade it for anything, you know,” Ferd said.

“I know.” Jonathan looked up at his sister. “How close are they?”

Adele closed her eyes and concentrated. “Not very,” she said. “They're mostly still searching for us two floors down, at the very edge of my radius. I'll let you know when they get closer.” Sighing, she leaned against the desk. “You don't actually think they'll kill us right away.”

“Nah,” Jonathan said. “Not when public execution is an option.”

“Lovely.”

Gabriel put an arm around his wife, pulling her close. “With any luck, the city will fall before the Order has the opportunity to do any such thing. It’s out of our hands now. The defenses of this base are thoroughly corrupted; the rest is up to everyone else.”

Adele nodded, then pulled herself up on the desk, sitting on its surface. “Might as well get comfortable while we wait,” she said. After a moment, Gabriel shrugged and joined her. The four of them sat in silence for a few minutes.

“They’re getting closer,” Adele whispered. None of them responded, and again they sat in silence, the only sounds the distant shouts of Order guards growing steadily more frantic.

Out of nowhere, Jonathan sighed heavily. “Gabriel.”

“Hmm?”

“You were right.”

Gabriel’s eyebrow shot up. “About what?”

“You know what,” Jonathan snapped. “About…” Jonathan took another breath, bracing himself. “About Adele. I never should have gone after her.” Jonathan looked up at Gabriel, but Gabriel’s expression remained unchanged so Jonathan went on. “It was the biggest mistake of my life. I should have just done what she asked, I never should have gone to Tibet, I never should have left Paris. I never should have left… you.”

There was a very long pause. “I see,” Gabriel said quietly.

“And I know that’s thirty years too late to be worth much,” Jonathan added in a rush, “but if it’s worth anything to you at all, well, there it is.”

For a moment, Gabriel was silent. “Why is it thirty years late?” he asked. “I know you issued a similar apology to Adele decades ago.”

Jonathan shrugged. “What would have been the point? We’d already made up our minds to hate each other forever, hadn’t we?”

“I suppose,” Gabriel admitted.

“I don’t think I could have gotten the words out decades ago. I don’t know if I could have gotten them out six months ago, if we’re being honest.”

“Are we being honest?” Gabriel asked.

“Please.”

Gabriel hesitated. “Jonathan, you were my best friend. And you abandoned me at the absolute lowest point in my entire life.”

Jonathan nodded. “I know.”

“And then you reappeared. With _her_ powers. Twisting them, abusing them, making a mockery of her legacy-”

“I _know_ , Gabriel.”

“-and the only way I could reconcile that with everything I thought you stood for was to tell myself that Jonathan Dumas as I’d known him was dead. Killed by grief, replaced by a cruel joke. I _mourned_ you, Jonathan. But you’re not dead, are you? You’re right here. Which means it was you the whole time.”

“I’ve never tried to pretend it wasn’t,” Jonathan said defensively. “Maybe I haven’t done everything I could have to make things right, but I have _never_ tried to disassociate myself from Hawkmoth. I’ve never acted as though we were two different people, or like my actions haven’t always been my own.” He sighed. “I’m not asking you to forgive me. I just… you were right, and you deserved to hear that from me at least once.”

Gabriel nodded slowly, then sighed. “You were right as well,” he said. “Finding Adele’s Miraculous was not impossible after all. I wish to God it _had_ been,” Gabriel added, somewhat bitterly, “but if I’d believed in your quest, supported your search instead of opposing it… maybe you would have made different choices when you found it.”

“Maybe,” Jonathan muttered. “So now what?”

“Oh,” Gabriel leaned back, “let’s just see if we survive the week first, shall we?” Gabriel glanced at his wife, who had been holding her breath during this entire conversation. “Out of curiosity, did you put him up to that?”

“Oh _honestly_ , Gabriel,” Adele said, rolling her eyes. “Why do you have to ruin moments like this? Of course I didn’t.”

“Yeah,” Ferd said, “Jonathan just blurts stuff out if he’s trapped in a room with someone for longer than ten minutes.”

“I do not,” Jonathan said defensively.

“Really? Because the sentences ‘I’m Hawkmoth’ and ‘We should get married’ both come to mind.”

Jonathan sighed. “Touché,” he muttered.

The four of them fell into silence again, drawing closer to one another as they waited for the inevitable.


	45. The Battle for Paris: Part Two

“Well?” Emma whispered, although there was no one close enough to overhear. Louis scanned the Luxembourg from their vantage point on the lawn, far enough back to avoid detection.

“They did it,” he whispered back, shoving his free hand into a pocket. “The defenses are weakened.”

“Enough so that I can teleport in and grab them?”

Louis shook his head. “No. We still need to fight our way through. But it's possible now.”He tightened his grip on Emma’s hand. “They knew we wouldn't be able to rescue them right away, and they all insisted on going in anyway.”

Emma nodded silently, then looked at her brother. “Ready to go back?”

“Yeah.” Before he'd even finished saying the word, they’d returned to the makeshift command center of the Resistance. A second later Emma dropped her transformation, and with it their invisibility. Every head in the room turned towards them, and their mother breathed a sigh of relief.

“You're back,” she said. She was sitting on a small couch off to the side of the room, her arm around Dani. “Did it go okay? Nobody saw you?”

“We were invisible,” Emma said, as Louis dropped her hand and crossed the room. “So… no.”

“Don't get smart with your mother,” Alya said. She was currently in the center of the room, standing over a large table and looking down at a map of Paris alongside General Benois. “You two missed the latest broadcast while you were out.”

“Oh,” Emma said, her face falling as she looked back at Marinette. “So they finally exposed you?”

“They exposed all of us,” Dani said flatly. “Every single person in the family. They even know which of the two of us is which. They got their Miraculous detectors up and running, apparently.” She leaned back into the cushions, trying and failing to appear casual. “The execution for Grandma and Grandfather and Uncle Jonathan is scheduled for Friday.”

Emma went pale. “Well… well, that's good, right? It means they're still alive. We’ll have the city back before Friday.” Dani shrugged.

“Of course it's good,” Alya said firmly. She looked over at Louis. “How did everything look?”

“Their mission was a complete success,” he said. “The Luxembourg defenses are a wreck, and even if the Order notices, they won't have time to get them back up by tomorrow.”

“Might have been nice to know beforehand,” the general muttered under his breath, “that their mission hinged on the honor of a supervillain.”

“He did it, didn't he?” Emma snapped. “Can we just focus on what’s left to do?” Emma never would have spoken to the country’s Chief of Defense in such a way if she’d put any forethought into it whatsoever, but to her surprise he nodded after half a second of shock.

“Of course,” he said. “How did the other half of your reconnaissance go?”

After the New Year’s mission, when Alya had first been faced with the prospect of bringing in actual military intelligence to the Resistance, she'd been cautiously elated. Just the thought of experienced, tactical minds that could review their plans, improve them, brainstorm them, was almost too much to hope for. Alya hadn't even thought to dream that Benois or the others would be able to bring in actual _resources_. But after debriefing the officers on the state of things, they had immediately begun telling Alya and her people about all the ways Paris was equipped to defend herself from major threats. Particularly the numerous top-secret cells designed to hold dangerous sorcerers and suppress their magic. Cells nobody in the Resistance had any idea existed. Cells that, hopefully, nobody in the Order had any idea existed, either.

Emma looked over at Louis, now sitting on the couch next to their mother, and he sighed. “There's no sign of any Order presence near the cells,” he started. “I think it's safe to assume they don't know about them.” Benois nodded. “And they're working perfectly.”

“But?”

“But… they're not strong enough to hold Thornton.”

“Head of the Order in Paris,” Dani muttered to her mother, before Marinette had a chance to voice the confusion Dani had picked up on. “One of Carew’s inner circle.” She looked at Louis. “Are you sure?” she asked. “You're not as accurate reading people’s magic potential from TV clips, maybe he's not as-”

“I've seen him in person,” Louis interrupted. “Remember? At the New Year’s gala. Trust me, he can break out of the anti-magic cells. He's almost as powerful as Carew. They'll hold anyone else in Paris, but not him. We’ll have to keep him knocked out or something, until we can come up with something stronger.”

Benois raised an eyebrow. “Not to offend all the superhero sensibilities present,” he said, “but if this Thornton is so dangerous, maybe keeping him alive doesn't need to be our top priority.”

“We are not killing a man just because keeping him alive might be inconvenient,” Marinette said, incensed.

“It could be a hell of a lot more than inconvenient if your son is right,” Benois replied. “It could jeopardize the entire mission. Freeing Paris is going to be hard enough, and I didn't spend four months in an Order prison camp just to-”

“You don't have to lecture _me_ about Order prisons, I'm very familiar with them,” Marinette snapped.

“That's enough,” Alya said wearily, still staring at the map. “We can figure it out once we actually have him. There are a few dozen more pressing concerns at the moment.” She bit back a yawn and looked at Benois. “Are we ready to start taking back the outer precincts? Lisbon, Rome, Berlin, Amsterdam, they're all ready to start their own uprisings. They're just waiting for word from us.”

Benoit nodded. “Yes,” he said carefully, “I believe we’re ready to set up.” He looked over at the superheroes. “We don't want to pull you four in too soon,” he said. “Other than identifying the powerful wizards and teleporting them to the cells, let the other members of the Resistance handle taking back the outer precincts. Based on what General Lahiffe has told me,” Benois had already called Alya this at least a dozen times in the past week, but she still blushed slightly, “I predict the Order will pull back to the Luxembourg by this time tomorrow. That's when we’ll need you four at your best. Until then, you'll stay out of danger as much as possible, understand?”

The three kids nodded begrudgingly, but Marinette agreed eagerly. “Absolutely,” she said, “the kids stay out of it as long as they can.” Then, very quietly under her breath, “Finally, we agree on something.”

 

* * *

 

Sleep was not coming easily for Marinette Dupain-Cheng.

She’d said goodnight to her children almost an hour ago now. Emma and Louis had been coming and going throughout the afternoon and evening as the Resistance began its assault and chipped away at the Order’s hold on the city, identifying the defeated Order guards with magic and teleporting them to the now heavily guarded anti-magic cells of Paris before they could regain consciousness. All three were upstairs, getting some desperately needed sleep before tomorrow’s final assault. Sleep that Marinette also desperately needed before tomorrow.

It was hardly surprising, Marinette’s insomnia. She always had trouble the night before something big, whenever she felt the weight of the world resting on her shoulders. Of course, that feeling had never been quite as apt as it was now.

And of course, sleeping alone was hard to get used to.

Marinette was just about to get up, to walk around-not outside, she knew she couldn’t go outside-when there was a soft knock at her open door, and three faces peered in.

“You okay?” Dani asked, and Marinette remembered all over again that keeping her fears and anxieties hidden from her children was no longer an option. She smiled gently.

“Is there any point in me bothering to answer that question from you anymore?” Marinette asked. Dani shrugged, and the three of them entered the room and sat down on the bed, crowding around their mother. “I'll be fine, kids. I just,” she sighed, “I don't know, it's a lot of things. I'm worried about your grandparents, and Alya and Nino, and I wish you three could sit tomorrow out. I know you can't,” Marinette added quickly, cutting off her children’s united cries of protest, “but I'm your mother, I can't help wishing it all the same.”

“We’ll be a lot safer tomorrow than we usually are,” Dani said, taking her mother’s hand. “We’ll have you protecting us.”

“We’ve never gone on the offensive like this before,” Emma said, hugging her knees to her chest and pointedly ignoring the glare her sister shot her. “Just quick in-and-out rescue missions.”

“Oh my God,” Dani said, exasperated, “what part of ‘Let’s go downstairs and make Mom feel better’ was confusing for you?”

“It’s not your job to make me feel better, sweetheart,” Marinette said quickly. “And like it or not, you can’t keep me from worrying about you three. That’s a lifelong occupation for me.” She did her best to smile reassuringly.

“We know it’s more than that,” Louis said. “It’s okay to be disappointed, we know you didn’t want this for any of us.”

Marinette opened her mouth to protest, but no sound came out. She stared at her children, her eyes growing damp. Finally, Dani glared at both her siblings. “Jesus, if I’d known how bad you two would be at this I would have come down here by myself,” she snapped.

“No, Louis is right,” Marinette said. “I am disappointed, and I suppose I’m not doing a very good job at hiding that. But not in you three, never in you three, do you understand? I-” she let out a frustrated sigh. “We had this whole plan, your father and I thought we’d figured it out perfectly. Your lives would be completely normal for sixteen years, you’d have perfect childhoods, and then we’d tell you everything. You’d have a few years of knowing, of getting used to the idea, learning everything we could safely teach you, and then your father and I would start pulling back. We’d go on fewer patrols, transform less and less, slowly start to retire. And if some new crisis arose after that and you three got pulled in to deal with it, well, you’d be adults by then.” Marinette blinked back a few tears. “I guess that was pretty stupid of us, to think we had any control over anything.”

Dani took her mother’s hand and squeezed it. “It’s okay,” she whispered.

Marinette shook her head. “No, it isn’t. We should have told you kids everything years ago, the second you were old enough to understand. Trying to make everything perfect just put you in danger. God, what if your grandparents had been taken, too? Or if they had been out of the country when all this… I can’t even stand to think about what would have happened to you three if they hadn’t been here to explain things, to protect you. I don’t know why we all thought secrecy would keep you kids safe. It certainly didn’t do anything to protect your father when he was your age.” She sighed again. “And tomorrow you’ll be in more danger than ever.”

“It’s bigger than us,” Louis said. Marinette let out a small laugh.

“That’s what One-that is, that’s what Pyra said,” Marinette said. “And you’re both right. I should probably try to focus on the actual stakes, instead of all this personal stuff.”

For a few moments there was silence, and then Dani broke it impulsively. “Benois’ daughter is pregnant,” she said in a rush. The other three looked at her, surprised. “She’s due in a couple of months. I asked her about it, when we were rescuing all the families of the generals before liberating the camp. It’s his first grandkid, she was going to surprise him with the news but his birthday was a week after the occupation started. So he didn’t know until we got him out and he saw her last week. The mission tomorrow, I know he talks about it like he’s thinking about everyone in Paris equally, but really? Really, for him it’s all about whether his first grandchild is born in a free country or not. A country he’s supposed to be defending.” Dani paused to organize her thoughts. “Trying to pretend it isn’t personal, that’s a losing game,” she said. “Trust me, if it’s personal you can’t force it to be impersonal. But maybe it’ll help to remember that it’s personal for everybody else, too.”

Marinette nodded, then leaned over and kissed her daughter’s forehead. “You’re right,” she said. A quick look of embarrassment crossed her face. “You know, I wish you’d mentioned that _before_ today, I might have had an easier time…” Marinette trailed off.

“Not biting Benois’ head off?” Louis suggested. Marinette chuckled.

“Yeah, that,” she agreed. “I don’t always… well, Benois isn’t the first high-ranking authority figure I’ve butted heads with as Ladybug, that’s for sure.”

“It went both ways,” Dani pointed out. “Benois said that thing about… what was it?”

“Superhero sensibilities,” Emma said, her voice soft. “Because of Thornton.” She bit her lip, then glanced at her mother. “I don’t care if Thornton dies,” Emma confessed. “I don’t _want_ to kill him, but if we have to kill him to keep Paris safe I won’t feel bad about it, not after everything he’s done. I guess I don’t have that superhero sensibility Benois was talking about.”

“Sweetheart,” Marinette said quickly, “you’re not the only pragmatic superhero. You don’t have to-”

“Well, I care if he dies,” Louis interrupted suddenly. “I want him to live through this. I want everything to go back to the way it was, and I want to watch him and Carew and all the rest of them go on trial. People have _died_. Maybe if some international tribunal finds Thornton guilty of those deaths I can finally stop feeling so guilty about them.”

“Oh,” Marinette gasped. She wasn't able to blink away her tears this time. “Louis, baby, tell me you don't really feel responsible for-”

“Of course he does,” Dani interrupted. “We all do. Not just the three of us, I mean everyone that’s been a part of fighting the Order for the last four months. Us, Aunt Alya and Uncle Nino, Grandma and Grandfather… everybody.”

Marinette looked at her three children, trying to steady herself, to keep her voice from breaking. “You’ve done so much,” she said, in more of a whisper than she’d intended. “You’ve saved so many people.”

The teens exchanged a quick glance, and then Emma spoke. “You’ve been doing this for forever, Mom,” she said. “I looked up a ton of stuff about you before all this happened, before I even knew it was you. You’ve saved way more people than we have, but there were a few-not a lot, but a few people-and even though you did your best, even though nobody could have done better, there were a few people you and Dad couldn’t save, weren’t there? Marinette nodded slowly. “Well… in thirty years, did you ever figure out how to not feel guilty about that?”

Marinette sighed. “No,” she admitted. “No, we never did.” She put her arms around all three of her children, pulling them close together in a giant embrace. They hugged her back as best they could, and she sighed and kissed the tops of their heads and didn't let go.

 

* * *

 

“… started helping the Resistance as soon as I could make contact, of course, I've been smuggling things across the city for months now, but I was never important enough to be in the middle of everything like this, even my cell leader never had direct contact with Lahiffe, and now I'm in the same room as Ladybug herself, Terrapin is healing my arm, I never-”

“Uh huh,” Louis interrupted, his patience starting to fray a bit. “You know, speaking of, healing your arm would go a lot faster if you'd just, like, calm down a little.”

“Sorry, sorry,” the excited Resistance fighter apologized in a rush. “It's just such an honor.”

Louis kept his focus on the man’s arm; the wound was more physical than anything else, but repairing the surface energy damage around it would still speed up recovery considerably. “It's an honor for us, too,” Louis said idly, and the man immediately protested. “I mean it, man. You're out there fighting the Order on the front lines, risking everything. No powers, no mask, just you. That's incredible. You're just as important as any of us. There's no way we could take Paris back without people like you.” Louis made one final pass over the rebel’s arm, more for the show of finality than out of necessity. “There, that should do it,” he said. “Take it easy, okay?” The man nodded, then grabbed Louis’ hand and shook it before Louis could get away.

“You okay?” Dani asked, sidling up to her brother once they were out of earshot. “I know the star-struck thing is a little exhausting, but I'm sure you'll get used to it, Mom seems pretty-”

“You know what's good for energy healing?” Louis asked, annoyed. “Calm, restive states. Peace, tranquility. The exact opposite of the state every single person I try to heal is in today.”

Dani snorted. “Sorry,” she said, “but I'll gladly take the overall emotional vibe today over the one Paris has had for the past four months. You know what it's like to become an empath when Paris is the most depressed it's been in a hundred years? People are finally _hopeful_ , Louis. Joyful, optimistic. It's like I've been in a dim room my whole life and now somebody’s finally turned up the lights.”

Louis sighed. “Yeah, I know, it's a good thing. Just makes my job harder, that's all.”

Dani narrowed her eyes at her brother. “You don't have to heal _everyone_ right away.”

“I know that.”

“Really? Did you have to heal that guy’s arm, or could he have waited until after the final attack, after we had the city back?” Louis said nothing. “You need to be just as ready as the rest of us for Luxembourg,” Dani pointed out. “Don't spend yourself before we’ve even started.”

Louis nodded. “Yeah, you're right,” he said. “I'll stick to emergencies from now on.”

“ _Louis_!”

“Like whatever that is, I guess,” Louis said wryly, turning around towards his mother’s voice. He paled when he saw who she was helping. “Shit,” he muttered, running over and reaching them just as Marinette finished helping Manon Chamack limp into one of the free beds.

“Hey,” Manon said, grinning at Louis even as she winced in pain. “Haven't seen you in awhile. Well, aside from the wanted posters I guess. Hard to miss those, they’re right next to mine,” she added proudly. “How’ve you been?”

“Better than you,” Louis answered immediately, and Manon’s grin widened.

“What were you thinking, getting that close?” Marinette demanded as Louis pulled a solid black crystal out of his backpack. “You could have been killed!”

Manon laughed weakly. “You sound just like you did when I was five and you caught me trying to climb over that balcony of yours. I'm not five anymore, Marinette.”

“Well, you could have fooled me,” Marinette snapped.

“You must have gotten pretty close to whatever they set off,” Louis said calmly, laying the crystal down Manon's chest. Manon scoffed.

“Order bastards can't keep me down for long, never could,” she said smugly. She looked at Louis. “Nothing compared to you kids, though,” she said, impressed. “Jeez, I remember when _you_ were five, and I was teaching you how to pick your first lock. Just look at you now.”

Marinette’s jaw dropped. “That was _you_? Do you have any idea what a nightmare that habit of his has been?”

“You should be thanking her,” Emma said, coming up behind them. “It was super useful a month ago, when we needed to break into,” Louis shot his sister a death glare, “... nowhere in particular,” Emma finished lamely.

“You should try to sleep, Manon,” Louis said quickly, grabbing his sister and leaving before his mother could ask any follow-up questions. Dani quickly joined them.

“You finished teleporting the guards?” she asked Emma.

“Until the next precinct falls,” Emma said. “Which should be any moment now, according to the latest report.”

“The last one,” Louis said. Emma nodded.

“Yeah,” she said. “One more round of teleporting Order officers to the cells, healing wounded Resistance fighters and then… then we’re up for real.”

 

* * *

 

Dani stood with her eyes closed, concentrating. After a few minutes she opened them again, then picked up the pen and began marking the floorplans of the Luxembourg laid out before her. “I could be a little off about what floor everyone’s on,” she said to Benois hesitantly, “but these are the areas I’m sensing the most signatures. The people in _these_ areas,” she made some more marks, “are particularly confident. And…” she bit her lip, then circled a spot in the center of the building on the third floor, “this area is a total dead zone. I’m not sensing a single person. It’s… off.” She turned to her brother. “Can you tell from back here if there’s an additional shield up over that area?” Louis shook his head. “Well, I think we should assume there is,” Dani said. “I don’t sense Thornton. I bet he’s in there.”

Benois nodded, studied the plans for a bit, then turned to them. “It’s not that far off from how I would have positioned everyone myself,” he said. “It's a strong position, but predictable. With you four and their defenses weakened, we should be able to break through.”

Meanwhile, Marinette was giving Alya as much last-minute information as she could think of.

“… and you can contact us through the Miraculouses with these numbers,” Marinette was telling Alya, “and we’ll answer, unless we’re in the middle of fighting.”

Alya rolled her eyes. “Just take earpieces,” she said impatiently. “They're hands-free and not connected to your weapons. Why must you make the yo-yo do _everything_?”

“I trust the yo-yo,” Marinette said. “I don’t trust your little earpieces.”

“Why-”

“Louis?” Marinette called to her son. He looked over, surprised. “Louis, is it possible for the Order, or anyone, to interfere with communication through Miraculouses?”

“No,” Louis said, still looking confused. “They’ve got built-in defenses, nobody can tap them or access-”

“That’s why,” Marinette said, turning back to Alya. “Last time I went up against a magician while using one of those earpieces he sent a fake message through it and I almost died. I’m not risking my kids like that.”

Alya raised an eyebrow. “The second this is all over,” she said, “I am sitting you down and getting that damn interview out of you and you’re not going to be able to just win arguments with random stuff I’ve never heard about anymore.”

 

* * *

 

“Duck!”

Marinette dodged just in time as a bolt of energy flew past her, towards her children. Louis threw up a shield, and the bolt bounced away harmlessly. Before the guard could shoot off another, Marinette threw out her yo-yo. The string wrapped around the man’s ankles, and she yanked his feet out from under him, pulling him to the ground with a heavy thud and knocking him out cold. Less than a second later, Emma appeared by his side and quickly grabbed him before they both disappeared.

“You okay?” Dani asked her mother as she and Louis caught up to her. “You're doing _really_ well,” she added.

“Yeah, you're incredible,” Louis said.

Marinette gave them both a half-smile. “Thanks. It's nothing, I just-” she threw her yo-yo out again, this time wrapping around two guards at once and pulling them together so quickly they knocked each other out, “-can't seem to get used to fighting without your father. I keep expecting him to be here, completing half my moves. It's like missing a limb.”

Louis nodded. “Your Miraculouses are designed to counterbalance one another,” he said. “That feeling’s only going to get worse. But in the meantime-”

“In the meantime, you three are doing a wonderful job,” his mother said quickly. “It's remarkable to see you all working so well together.”

Emma reappeared next to them. “Who’s left?” she asked Louis, scanning the courtyard for any more fallen enemies. Louis pointed.

“Tall redhead, two o'clock,” he said. “Everyone else is totally magicless.”

Emma nodded, watched the man for a second as he ran towards them, then disappeared. She reappeared right in front of him, fist first. He ran right into her and knocked himself out. She disappeared with him, then reappeared several moments later next to her family.

“That was _sick_ ,” Dani said appreciatively.

Emma blushed. “Really? I've been dying to try that out, but I never had the opportunity before now.”

“Your grandfather taught you that, didn't he?” Marinette asked, and Emma nodded. “I remember him using it once or twice, the few times we fought together. He was very fond of it. You did it perfectly, I know he'd be proud.”

Emma's blush deepened as a cheer went up around them, and Marinette’s yo-yo rang. Marinette flipped it open, and Alya’s voice came over. “Marinette? We’re ready to push inside, we need you four at the front.”

“On it,” Marinette said. They ran forward, reaching the doors as they opened, and Louis threw up preemptive shields ahead of them. Magic once again bounced off harmlessly as the rest of their forces poured in behind them and began engaging.

“These guys are nothing,” Louis said, looking around. “The other rebels don't need us to help take any of them out. Where are the Order’s most powerful magicians?”

“If I had to guess, I'd say over there,” Dani said, pointing up and to the east. “There's a large force in the library, a huge amount of overconfidence. Patience, too. They're waiting for us.”

“Well, it's rude to keep people waiting,” Marinette said. “If they're not expecting us until the Resistance has pushed that far in, maybe we should take them out now, try to reclaim the element of surprise.”

Louis nodded. Marinette held her yo-yo up and quickly relayed this plan to Alya. After getting a go-ahead, Emma took her siblings’ hands while her mother placed a hand on Emma’s shoulder, and then all four were gone.

They rematerialized within the library, the suddenness of their appearance echoing around them in the great and silent space. Dani frowned.

“I don’t like this,” she said slowly. “There were a ton of signatures in here a second ago, but they’re all gone now.”

“Maybe you got the room wrong?” Emma suggested.

“No, I would still be able to feel-shield!” Louis threw up a shield over everyone just before the bolts of magical energy descended upon them. Dani breathed a sigh of relief. “Is everyone-what’s wrong?” she asked, turning suddenly to Emma.

Emma kept staring in horror at a point in the room above them. “They just took out that _entire shelf_ ,” she said, pointing to where one of the blasts had ricocheted off the shield.

“Seriously?” Dani said, annoyed. “You’re upset about _books_ right now?”

“Do you have any idea how old some of the books in this library are?”

“You-” Dani stopped paying attention to Emma and whirled on her brother suddenly. “And what are _you_ upset about?”

“Um,” Louis winced as another energy bolt hit the shield, “just not sure how much longer I can hold this, those blasts really pack a punch. These guys are way more powerful than the ones we fought outside. Should’ve used my most powerful shield, I guess, but I didn’t want to pop my timer.”

Marinette bit her lip as she looked around the room. “If you drop the shield when we’re ready, we can-”

“No,” Louis interrupted, shaking his head. “These blasts are more powerful versions of the one that hit Emma back in October. If any one of us gets hit, best case scenario we’re still out of the action for the rest of the battle. And I might not be able to heal hits from those things, they could permanently affect our ability to wield quantic magic. We might need to just have Emma pull us out.”

“We can't run, we need to take these guys out,” Emma said. “Can you hold out until backup arrives? Let’s call Aunt Alya and-”

“If we can’t take them, backup won’t help,” Marinette said decisively. “Looks like I’m up.” She put a hand to her son’s shoulder. “Just hold out a little longer, Louis,” she said, “I know you can do it.” He grinned appreciatively and nodded, though beads of sweat were already forming on his forehead. Marinette pulled out her yo-yo and threw it as far up as she could beneath the dome of the shield. “Lucky Charm!”

A second later, a box fell into Marinette’s open hands. It was covered in wires, and there was a rather obvious red button on top.

“Is that a _bomb_?” Dani asked, incredulous.

“I don’t think so,” Marinette said slowly, turning it over to look at the bottom, “but I don’t… Emma, do you know what this is?”

Emma shook her head. “No idea.”

Marinette scanned the room once more. “I’ve never gotten a Lucky Charm I didn’t recognize before,” she said. “There must be some-”

“Do you need to know what it is?” Dani interrupted. “There’s a big red button, just push it.”

“Yeah, that’s smart,” Emma said. “Just push the big red button without having any idea what it does.”

“It’s a Lucky Charm, we don’t need to know what it does! Besides, what the hell else can we do?”

“I don’t know,” Marinette said, “usually my Charms aren’t quite as direct, maybe-”

“Hate to interrupt,” Louis said, his voice now noticeably strained, “but we don’t exactly have a lot of time to brainstorm this one, Mom. Maybe that’s why you’ve got a more direct Charm than usual. Either way, you’ve got about another minute to decide what to do with it.”

Marinette nodded. “Okay,” she said nervously, holding her hand over the button, “here goes nothing.” She pressed down.

Instantly, the entire room was plunged into darkness.

“It was an EMP?” Emma said, confused. “What good does that do us?”

“They can’t see us now,” Dani said. “Maybe it’s safe to drop the shield and-”

“We can’t see them either,” Louis pointed out. “Dropping the shield is still too risky.”

From the other side of the shield, the four of them heard one of the Order guards start laughing. The blasts resumed hitting the shield, and Louis wasn’t able to keep from letting out a groan. Marinette instinctively reached in the dark for her son. “Just hold on,” she said, “I’m sure I can figure out what this was supposed to-”

Quite abruptly, the laughter stopped, and a second later there was a dull thud. Sounds of confusion quickly followed.

“Ouch,” a new voice said, echoing in the large, open space. “That sounded like it _stung_.”

Dani gasped. “Oh, _hell_ yes,” she whispered excitedly.

“Who is-” Marinette was cut off by the sudden panicked cries of the guards surrounding them, and the thud after thud that they seemed helpless to prevent. Then the last one fell and there was silence. A moment later the backup generators kicked in and the room was flooded with light once more.

Louis dropped the shield, and Dani ran forward excitedly towards the new hero as the rest of them looked around. Emma walked over to the nearest unconscious body and bent down before disappearing with it as Marinette looked at her son.

“You gave out the Bee Miraculous?” she asked. Louis nodded. “To who?”

“Oh, maybe I'll tell you in sixteen years,” Louis said, shoving his hands into his pockets. “You know, when you're old enough.”

Marinette’s cheeks went pink. “I suppose I deserved that,” she muttered.

Dani, meanwhile, was busy gushing. “Oh my God, that was _amazing_ , Mo-wait, what do I call you?”

“I was thinking ‘Honey’, unless that's too cute? Apiinii wasn't much of a sounding board, but-”

“I love it, it's perfect,” Dani interrupted. “You were so cool! How did you knock out ten guys in sixty seconds?”

Grinning, Honey held up her hand. As she pinched her fingers together, a small black-and-yellow dart appeared between them. “Five-minute knockouts,” she said. “Is that going to be long enough?”

“Oh yeah, Emma can get all of them to oh my God your _hair_!”

Honey frowned. “What about it?”

“It's yellow!”

“What?” Honey demanded, her hand flying up to her puff almost defensively. “I'm _blonde_ now?”

“No no no, just the pink streak, it changed color. Not blonde, bright yellow.”

“Oh,” Honey said, mollified. “It looks good?” she asked skeptically.

“Yeah, your whole look is perfect. Your eyes are solid blue, it's totally badass, and the striped one-piece unitard is all classic retro superhero, I love it.”

“It is refreshing,” Marinette said as she walked over, “to see a new hero stick with the streamlined superhero look without adding a lot of unnecessary accessories like _some_ new heroes I could name.”

Dani raised an eyebrow. “This from the woman who married a guy whose costume has a _bell_ on it.”

“You need to recharge,” Louis said to his mother. She nodded and dropped her transformation, walking off a little as she pulled out the cookies she'd packed in her civilian form. “And you…” Louis trailed off for a second, looking at Honey. “You were amazing. I knew you'd be perfect for this.”

Honey smiled, then threw her arms around Louis and hugged him tightly. “Well, thanks for the chance to prove you right,” she whispered. “You don't know what it means to me, getting to be a part of taking Paris back.”

 

* * *

 

Louis studied the barrier on the third floor thoughtfully. “It's new,” he finally said, reporting both to the rebels around him, their makeshift army having fought its way through the rest of the Order forces to this point, and also to Alya and Benois over his Miraculous-turned-walkie-talkie. “They must have put it up when they realized their defenses were corrupted. But they didn't have enough time to cast anything bigger than this one room, or anything nearly as strong as what they had before.”

“But nobody can get through it?” Alya asked.

“Well…” Louis squinted at the barrier again. “Emma could, I think. I'm positive, actually.”

“Emma is not going in there,” Marinette said immediately. “Who knows what kind of trap is waiting for her on the other side?”

“How are we going to find out if we don't look?” Emma asked. “We have to end this. Thornton _has_ to be in there, and once we take him out the city is ours again. The longer we stand here waiting, the longer he has to cast some horrible, deadly, city-wide spell that brings the entire Resistance to its knees. We have to end this _now_.”

A rustling noise came over Louis’ Miraculous. “Could she go in for half a second?” Benois asked, and Marinette made a face. “Just so she could report back on what's there?”

“My daughter is not going in alone and-”

“Not alone,” Dani interrupted quickly. “She could bring me and Louis. I can scan all the emotional signatures in a second, figure out how many there are and what they're up to, and Louis can scan all the magical signatures, figure out what they're casting in there and how to stop it.”

Marinette frowned, but Louis nodded. “Yeah, that should work,” he said. “We'd be invisible, and Emma would bring us back out in two seconds. That's all me or Dani would need.

“Well…” Marinette looked back and forth at her children. “You'll be back in two seconds?”

Emma nodded emphatically. “Promise,” she said. “Corner of the room, invisible, one, two, then right back here.” After a moment of hesitation, Marinette sighed and nodded. Dani and Louis each took a hand and visibly braced themselves. “Rajji, eyes unseen!” The three of them disappeared.

Three seconds went by.


	46. The Battle for Paris: Part Three

_One, tw_ -

Some invisible force grabbed at the center of Emma and yanked her forward, ripping her from the grasps of her siblings.

Emma barely had enough time to register the layout of the room in that first second and a half. It was hard to make herself look around now, hard to concentrate on anything other than breathing, but Emma forced herself to take everything in. She didn't have Dani’s empathy, she didn't have Louis’ ability to read energy, but it was easy to tell that the ten Order operatives present were all very, very powerful, that they considered themselves to be very important, and that they'd been expecting her.

Six were gathered around a table to the side, working on God only knew what, and they'd barely looked up when Emma and her siblings appeared. The other four, however, were giving them their undivided attention. Especially the one sitting behind the desk at the center of the room, the one with his right fist propped up and clenched so tight Emma was sure she could feel it holding onto her personally, the one she recognized, the one whose eyes were lit up now like an apex predator cornering its prey. He smiled.

“Hera,” Thornton said, leaning back, the picture of relaxation save for that clenched fist, “right on time. Or would you prefer ‘Emma’?”

Emma forced her voice steady. “Thornton.”

“I believe that's ‘President Thornton’ to you,” Thornton replied calmly.

Emma rolled her eyes, and out of the corner of her vision she saw her sister cross her arms as she scoffed. “Oh, who can keep all you people and your stupid made-up titles straight anymore?” Dani demanded. “What's Carew now, Emperor? High King? Supreme Galactic Ruler of the Universe?”

Thornton’s smile flickered. “Carew is a great man. Give him a little time and he will certainly be all of those things.”

“He's out of time,” Louis said softly. “It's over. Paris has fallen, along with another half dozen of your cities, and the barrier is next. You don't even have the forces you need to hold Western Europe as it is. Once the barrier is gone and the rest of the world sees what you've done here-”

“You three are the ones who are out of time,” Thornton interrupted. His fist tightened, and Emma fell to her knees. Her siblings rushed to her side, each putting an arm around her and helping her back to her feet. The second both were touching her, Emma tried teleporting to no avail. The last time she'd felt like that, the last time she'd been transformed and unable to teleport, was when-

_Focus_. Emma clamped down on her rising panic, shoved it deep inside of herself. Panic was the last thing she needed right now.

Thornton’s grin widened as the three Agreste heroes glared at him. “You have no idea, I'm sure, how much easier magic becomes once you know exactly whom you're targeting,” he said smugly. “You’ve been quite a nuisance these past four months, but now that I know who you are you're as easy to control as a puppet.”

Emma thought fast. “Just you, though.”

Thornton raised an eyebrow. “Pardon?”

“Just you. Even with our names, you're the only one in this room-only one in Paris-powerful enough to control a transformed Miraculous user. And you can only control one of us at a time.”

A look of annoyance crossed Thornton’s face, and Emma knew she'd guessed right. “It's more than enough,” Thornton said. “You can’t do anything while I hold you, and your partners cannot escape without you. You have no choice but to-” Thornton stopped talking abruptly, his other hand shooting out and grabbing at the air in the blink of an eye. Emma felt her sister shudder as she gasped in pain. Thornton opened his left hand and let the dead butterfly fall to his desk. “I wouldn't try that again if I were you,” he said lightly. “I may only be able to control one of you at a time, but I can easily kill any troublesome spares.”

“Then why don't you?” Dani snapped angrily, clearly still recovering from the death of her attempted akuma.

“Oh, I think you'll be more useful to the Order alive if you know what's good for you. I believe your public surrender is just what this city needs. I only really need one of you alive for that, of course, but since the people perceive the three of you as a single unit, it would probably be better if you all surrendered together.”

“We’re not surrendering. You can kill all three of us, but the Resistance is still at your door,” Louis said. “You can't stay in here forever.”

“I don't need forever,” Thornton said. “Just a few more hours. The spell my magicians are currently working on,” Thornton gestured to the table off to the side, “will take care of all the rebels in this building. Our final wave of reinforcements should be arriving any minute now; that should keep your friends sufficiently distracted while we finish our work in here. If you've surrendered before then, and convinced the rest of the rebels to surrender as well, excellent. If not… well, there will be no one left but you three to surrender at all. Either way, the point should be clear for the rest of the city.”

“You don't get us at all, do you?” Dani demanded.

“Superheroes?” Thornton asked, saying the word as though it were a curse. “On the contrary, I think I understand all too well your-”

“Parisians,” Dani corrected angrily. “You've been in charge of this city for over four months and you still don't know the first thing about its people. Every member of the Resistance could drop dead in an instant and you still wouldn't win. As long as there's a single Parisian left in this city there will be someone fighting you. Maybe not to your face, maybe not right away, but this city will _never_ belong to you, or to the Order, no matter what happens to us.”

“Oh, I think you vastly underestimate the role you superheroes play in the public consciousness. The world has become far too dependent on your ilk. Once you're seen to surrender, the rest of the city will follow.”

“Wasn't that your first plan?” Emma asked. “Remove all the superheroes and the rest of the people will fall in line like sheep to accept the new world order? How well did that work out for you in August? There was,” Thornton scowled and tightened his grip further, making it difficult for Emma to speak, but she pushed on, “already a resistance movement forming before anyone knew our names. We… just help the people help themselves, that's all.”

Before Thornton could respond, there was a sudden flash of light as Emma’s transformation fell away. Thornton released his grip on her, and Emma took a deep breath. She felt much better, no longer being controlled by Thornton’s magic, but it was harder to keep from panicking without her powers. Standing untransformed in a room full of the Order’s most powerful sorcerers, Emma felt like a rabbit surrounded by a pack of wolves.

“If you want to help the people of Paris help themselves,” Thornton said, leaning back, “you'll publicly surrender and convince the rest of the Resistance to do the same. A return to stability and order is what this city needs, not more violence and upheaval.”

Dani scoffed. “You cut us off from the rest of the world, you strip us of all our basic freedoms, you execute protesters without trial, and you have the nerve to pretend you want what's best for Paris?”

“All that is temporary,” Thornton said. “Deprogramming people who have been brainwashed is never an easy thing, but in time the people will see that our empire is in everyone's best interest. Once that happens, the barrier can come down and we will take our rightful place in the world. No more curfews, no more arresting dissidents, no more patrols everywhere. None of that will be necessary once people realize how much better off they are with us than relying on you vigilante scum.”

“Wait,” Emma said. “You actually _believe_ all your anti-superhero nonsense? I figured that was just your dumb excuse for taking out everyone that could stop you. You know half the people you kidnapped back in August weren’t even superheroes, don’t you?”

“Unfortunately, there are always necessary sacrifices that come with progress,” Thornton said. “Healthy tissue that must be cut away with the infection, so to speak. Superheroes have been festering in society unchecked for too long now. It’s a shame that a few innocent magicians had to be removed along with them, but it’s worth it to return to a more natural order.”

“Why you?” Louis asked. “Why is it natural for _you_ to be the one in charge?”

“It's in my blood. Our blood,” Thornton added, gesturing to the magicians around him. “We are the descendants of great men, men who made kings and empires flourish. My own ancestor was the personal magician of Louis XIV.”

Dani raised an eyebrow. “God, I can't imagine how depressing it must be to have to go back a dozen generations to find a family member worth bragging about,” she said derisively. “We can't relate at all. Our parents are awesome, our grandparents are awesome, _we’re_ awe-”

“Your parents and grandparents are a scourge and I will take immense satisfaction in watching them all executed,” Thornton interrupted angrily. “Your kind has been a blight on the world for the past century and a half.”

“What, Miraculous users?” Louis asked. “I hate to be the one to tell you, but we've been around _way_ longer than that. Hell, the guy that had mine right before me was around longer than that. Our mom’s earrings used to belong to Joan of Arc.”

“Superheroes,” Thornton corrected impatiently. “Haven't you been listening? I don't care about Miraculous holders. I have no objections to Joan of Arc. Back in her day, Miraculous uses and everybody else knew their rightful places in the world.”

There was a stunned pause. “Sorry,” Dani finally said, not bothering to hide her incredulity, “but did you actually just say Joan of Arc _knew her place_?”

“I really don't think she did,” Louis said matter-of-factly. “I mean, history's not exactly my strongest subject but I know Miraculous users and not knowing her place was kind of Joan’s whole deal.”

“Isn't your place _behind_ the seat of power?” Emma asked Thornton. “I mean, by your own logic? If your whole argument is that everybody should be doing what their great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparents were doing, _your_ ancestor wasn't Louis XIV, was he? You people were all secret and controlling things from the shadows, right?”

“Yeah,” Dani said. “Crawl back into the shadows, why don't you?”

“The world was _broken_ ,” Thornton said defensively. “The kings and emperors and great leaders were all gone, or I would have been happy to serve them in secret. But all we had were weak, temporary politicians. Great leadership was impossible under the previous system. The world needed someone to sweep away the weeds and decay of modernity. We were the only ones willing to do what needed to be done, and so it was necessary for us to take power directly.”

“Convenient,” Emma said dryly.

Thornton scowled. “I see that rationality alone cannot not sway you. Perhaps something a little more emotional is in order.” Thornton turned his attention to the monitor on his desk, which was currently faced away from the three heroes, and began typing. A second later, a ringing could be heard. “Hello?” a voice said.

“Is he ready?” Thornton asked, addressing the monitor.

“Yes, sir.”

“You’re certain he’ll cooperate?” Thornton asked.

“Yes, sir, we’ve been working on him just like you ordered.”

“Good. Bring him out.” There was a shuffling noise for a while, and then Thornton smiled. “Allow me to explain what’s going on here,” he said condescendingly. “You see-”

“Let me guess,” a familiar voice interrupted. The three teens exchanged looks of shock. “My wife made it back to Paris and she's been causing you people a world of trouble ever since. Now you want _me_ to convince her to stop? Even if I wanted to, which I don't, she's not-”

“Your wife?” Thornton said. “Goodness, no. Your wife's life is already forfeit. You're here to talk some sense into your children.”

There was a pause. “What?” All the amusement had gone from their father's voice.

“I’d rather not execute a pack of fourteen year olds if I don't have to, even if these ones have been committing high treason for the last four months straight, but they simply refuse to listen to reason and publicly surrender. I thought perhaps they'd be more inclined to obey their father.”

There was another pause. “You… you don't have teenagers, do you?” Adrien asked wryly.

A flash of annoyance crossed Thornton’s face. “Mr. Agreste, your parents have already been arrested and sentenced to execution, and your wife’s capture is imminent. If you want to have any family left by the end of the week, I suggest you cooperate and convince your offspring to do the same.” Thornton swiveled the monitor towards the heroes, and they all gasped. They'd never seen their father, or Chat Noir for that matter, look so beaten up. Dani could feel Louis’ reaction as well, far more horrified than his sisters’, and she remembered how he'd reacted to seeing their mother when she'd first gotten back. Dani knew Louis was seeing damage she could only begin to imagine, and she instinctively reached behind Emma’s back to squeeze her brother’s hand.

Adrien, for his part, did not seem to even notice his injuries, but he'd gone pale the second his children had come into view. He looked back and forth at all three of them silently for a moment. “Kids?”

Louis sighed. “Hi, Dad.”

“What… what are you doing?”

“Um.” Dani bit her lip. “Liberating Paris?”

“You have done no such thing,” Thornton interrupted. “Your little rebellion has failed, and if you want to live to see tomorrow you'll-”

“Oh my God, you have _nine_ guys left,” Emma interrupted, rolling her eyes at Thornton in annoyance before looking back at her father. “Don't listen to him, Dad, every other Order operative in Paris has been captured by the Resistance, we hit a _tiny_ speed bump and got captured but the entire city is in open rebellion, Mom’s literally ten meters away taking care of all the forces that aren't hiding in here like cowards. It's over, Thornton's just refusing to face facts.”

Thornton glared, but before he could answer Adrien spoke. “You… you shouldn't be fighting, this isn't what we-”

“Yeah, we already got the ‘We wanted better for you kids’ speech from Mom,” Louis said. “We know, we get it, but we couldn't do _nothing_ four months ago, any more than you could have done nothing when you were our age.”

“Mr. Agreste,” Thornton said, when Adrien didn’t respond, “if you are not going to start controlling your children, I’m afraid I’ll be forced to order my subordinates there to start enacting some more violent measures in order to get what I want out of them.”

“Don’t you even think about it,” Dani said angrily, addressing not Thornton but the guards standing on either side of Adrien. “Paris is practically ours. Once it is, we’re coming right for your stupid little prison island, and when I get there I swear to God whatever you’ve done to our dad I’ll do twice that to each and every one of you, got it?”

The guards stared at Dani, speechless, and in their silence Adrien sighed. “Danielle, don’t worry about me, don’t put yourself in danger for me, okay? Just…” Adrien trailed off suddenly and looked at Emma. “That’s my shirt,” he said, as though it were the most surreal thing he’d seen that day.

“Huh?” Oh.” Emma looked down at the shirt she’d put on that morning before transforming, an oversized green concert tee she’d stolen from her father’s dresser months ago. “Yeah, um, I just… I mean, you couldn’t be here for this, but everyone else was, so I thought I’d just, you know.” Emma shrugged. “Next best thing, I guess.”

Adrien blinked back tears. “Oh,” he whispered.

“Mr. _Agreste_ ,” Thornton repeated, his tone far less controlled, his rising anger now impossible to miss, “do you or do you not have something to say to your children?”

“Yeah.” Adrien took a shaky breath. “Yeah, I guess I do.” He looked each of his three children in the eye before continuing. “Give ‘em hell, kids.” The three of them grinned at their father for roughly half a second before Thornton scowled and slammed a button, abruptly ending the call.

“The sheer level of incompetence displayed by our agents in charge of that place is mind-blowing,” he muttered angrily under his breath. “I suppose it’s no surprise it wasn’t our best and brightest volunteering for the job-”

“Yeah, that was definitely Mom’s impression,” Emma said. Thornton glared at her before turning to the crowded table at the side of the room.

“When is that damn spell going to be ready?” he demanded. The magicians looked up, startled, and then exchanged nervous glances with one another.

“Well,” one woman finally worked up the nerve to say, “if all goes well, it shouldn’t be more than a few-”

“You have less than an hour,” Thornton interrupted. “Understood?”

The woman nodded nervously. “Yes, sir.”

Dani snorted. “She knows they can’t do it in an hour,” she announced confidently. “All of them do. What’s it really going to take, two hours? Three? _Four_?” Danielle laughed again. “Four hours! That’s four hours for our supernaturally lucky mother to find a way through your stupid barrier, or four hours for us to get the upper hand back. Why don’t you surrender now? It’s probably the only way you’ll survive this.”

“Quiet,” Thornton snapped. He turned to his right, to the assistant with an earpiece standing right next to his desk. “How are the reinforcements doing?” he asked. “Are they keeping the rebels sufficiently distracted from the barrier?”

“Um. Well.” The man hesitated. “There’s, uh, there seems to have been something of a development, and they’re having difficulty advancing to where they need to-”

“What _development_?” Thornton demanded. “Four superheroes is one thing, but surely they can handle _one_ , can’t they?”

“Well. It’s, uh, it’s not just the one, it seems.”

Thornton’s left eye twitched slightly. “Excuse me?”

“Oh, did I forget to mention that?” Louis asked brightly. “I gave out another Miraculous. And we’re out of family members, so good luck figuring out _this_ one’s real identity.”

“Sir,” Thornton’s assistant said nervously, “I’m sure that once our people become accustomed to this new hero’s power set they’ll-”

“Enough! That’s enough!” Thornton glared at the teens. “You people are worse than roaches, you know that? No matter how many of you we crush, there’s always more crawling out of the woodwork. Well, it’s time to take you all down at once, no more half measures.” Thornton turned around and opened up a cabinet behind the desk.

“Are you quite sure?” his assistant asked. “Even with an additional superhero, it is highly unlikely they’ll be able to breach the barrier before we enact our-”

“I am _done_ dealing with anonymous superheroes,” Thornton snapped. “It took us four months to figure out these brats.”

“But our own men will also be affected by the-”

“If they can’t handle a couple of superheroes they don’t deserve the power they have,” Thornton said decisively. “Everyone who matters is immune, the others can deal.” He pulled a strange-looking box out of the cabinet, turned around and laid it on his desk. “Do any of you recognize what this is?” he asked the heroes.

Emma and Dani didn’t, but Dani could tell that Louis did, that he immediately knew exactly what he was looking at. He kept his face a mask, and Dani didn’t understand why his primary emotions were hope and overwhelming relief until he spoke.

“That’s a dampener,” Louis said softly. Thornton grinned, somewhat manically.

“That’s right,” he said. “One of the most powerful dampeners in the world. This device will block all magic inside of Paris for everyone but me and my most trusted men. We set it up weeks ago. Now that all the superheroes in Paris are in this building, surrounded by my men, I think the time has come to activate it.” Thornton pressed the button on top of the device, and Louis winced, sensitive to the sheer power of the thing even though he was personally immune. Thornton turned to Emma. “Go on,” he said, pleased. “Transform.”

Emma took a moment to assess the situation. Their immunity to the dampener wasn’t enough to give them the edge they needed, not right now, but if they could hide that immunity until Thornton’s guard was down… Emma closed her eyes and pretended to concentrate for a few seconds before opening them. “I can’t,” she lied.

Thornton turned to his assistant. “Well?”

The assistant listened to his earpiece for a moment, then grinned. “The new superhero is powerless,” he announced, and Emma bit back a sigh of relief that they’d forgotten to warn Monique about the dampener when giving her the Miraculous. “She’s retreated, and our men are advancing.”

“Excellent.” Thornton looked at the teens, then walked over to the table. “Let’s see if I can’t speed this spellwork along now that I’m not preoccupied with babysitting, shall we?” He took a seat at the table, then turned back to the remaining men. “They’re still powerless, but make sure they don’t do anything stupid, would you?”

Cautiously, Emma and Louis both looked at Dani. She nodded as subtly as she was able, and began to concentrate.

Fortunately, the rest of the people in the room were not nearly as confident as Thornton was. Even with the dampener on, there was more than enough fear, doubt and regret for Dani to work with. She silently determined which of the two men watching them was more susceptible to her powers, and then cast about for-

-there. A plain moth, in the corner of the room. It had been excruciating, when Thornton killed the first butterfly Dani had been mentally connected to, but he was distracted now, and if she focused, if she summoned it just right… yes. She’d never had reason to before, but now she directed the moth’s path itself, willing it to fly close to the ground, out of the view of the inattentive men watching them now. Slowly, so slowly, it made its way across the room, reaching her feet before flying up to the hand she held behind her back. Dani cupped her hand around it, closed her eyes for a second, and then let the akuma go. It flew unnoticed a few feet, then landed on her target.

Slowly, Dani began to adjust the man’s emotions, careful not to startle him. This was new, she’d never been so delicate with an akuma victim’s emotions before, but one gasp of shock could ruin everything. Slowly, she dialed up his regret, dampened his loyalty, made every adjustment she needed to make so that surrender was now, in this man’s mind, the only option. She noticed him glance at his partner nervously.

_Richard_. That required concentration as well, Dani usually didn’t bother to address her targets mentally when speaking out loud was so much easier and produced the exact same effect.

“Wha-”

_QUIET_. Richard’s partner looked at him, confused, and Richard faked a cough. _You want to end this, don’t you? You want to survive this, don’t you?_

_...yes._

_Good. I’ll give you the power to end it._

Richard hesitated. _How are you-_

_Never mind._ Dani shut down his curiosity. _Just do exactly what I say, alright? Do you accept?_

Richard nodded his head ever so slightly. _Yes._

Dani poured every ounce of power she could into the man. _You’ve seen what my Champions can do. Their power is yours now. Is it enough to defeat Thornton?_

_No_.

Dani bit back a cry of frustration. _Everyone else?_

_Yes._

_Fine. Just wait._ Dani thought for a moment, considered her options. Emma couldn’t transform without giving them away, even the few seconds it would take would be far too long, but Louis… _Get Thornton over here. Get him within reach of my brother and keep him distracted. Once we’ve taken him down, take care of the rest of the Order magicians in this room and disable the barrier, understand?_

Richard began to look around. While he was thinking, Dani shot her brother a ‘get ready’ look, and Louis nodded. Richard’s gaze landed on the desk and he took a step towards it, examining a sheet of paper lying on its surface for a moment before picking it up. “Sir?”

Thornton looked up from his work. “What?”

“Is this… forgive me, but the runework on the defense barrier, it’s… I should have noticed before, but-”

“What are you babbling about?” Thornton demanded. “We all checked the barrier runes, they’re flawless.”

“I thought so too, sir, but take a look.” Thornton got up and walked towards his desk. Richard walked towards Thornton, holding the paper out, but he angled his path so that they met right in front of Louis. “Here, right here, do you see it?” Richard pointed at a random rune on the page, and Thornton bent down, squinting. Dani widened her eyes at her brother and he understood.

“No,” Thornton said impatiently, “I don’t see any-” Quick as lightning, Louis brought his hand up to Thornton’s temple and the man collapsed on the spot. It wasn’t until his body hit the ground that the other’s in the room even looked up, and by then it was far too late.

As Richard began attacking, Louis threw up a shield over them. “Rajji, feathers out!” Emma shouted, quickly transforming as Dani kept her focus on the battle suddenly raging before them. “How long will he be out for?” Emma asked Louis. Louis shrugged.

“Half an hour, maybe? Not long, but-”

“Long enough,” Emma said, crouching down to grab Thornton before disappearing. Louis and Dani exchanged a glance, and then Louis dropped the shield and they both joined the fight. In seconds, all eight were unconscious.

“The barrier,” Dani reminded Richard breathlessly. Richard nodded, then picked up the piece of paper he’d dropped at the beginning of the fight. He concentrated on it, muttering under his breath, and the edges began to smoulder. A few seconds later it went up in flames. His final goal accomplished, Dani felt her power over him slipping away and she quickly erased his memory while she still could. Richard blinked, shook his head, and looked around, first startled and then panicked. “What the…” His eyes locked on Dani and Louis and he immediately took a defensive stance and raised his hands. Before he could attack, though, Emma reappeared right in front of him and knocked him out. She looked back at her siblings, and all three sighed in relief as the door opened and the resistance fighters on the other side began rushing in.

Almost instantly, their mother appeared. She was at the back of the crowd at first, but she quickly pushed her way through, running as soon as she was able and throwing her arms around her children. “Two seconds!” she cried. “What happened to two seconds, what _happened_?”

“Nothing we couldn’t handle,” Dani said as the three of them hugged back.

“God, I’m never letting any of you out of my sight again for the rest of my life,” Marinette declared, continuing to cling to her children as she kissed the tops of their heads frantically. It was Emma who pulled away first, squeezing her mother one more time before turning and walking over to Thornton’s desk. “What are you doing, sweetheart?”

“Just…” Emma studied the desk monitor for a moment before frowning and pressing a few keys. After a few tries, it began to ring.

“Sir? Was there something else you-” The guard stopped mid-sentence as he noticed Emma, shocked. “ _You_.”

Emma leaned towards the monitor. “You’re next,” she said calmly, before hanging up.


	47. Jonathan Dumas

“I wanted you to rescue me,” Adele whispered.

Jonathan closed his eyes, leaned his head against the wall of their tiny cell, and tried to brace himself for his sister’s latest wave of despair. _They're her emotions, they're harder on her than they are on you, if she can get through this so can you._ “It doesn't matter, Adele.”

“I said I didn't,” she continued, not registering Jonathan’s response. “I was so angry. You didn't protect him.”

“I know.”

“But I wanted you to come. I’d think about it, in the middle of the night when it was impossible to sleep. I think if anyone could figure out how to get me out of here, you could.”

“ _There_ , Adele, get you out of there,” Jonathan corrected, not for the first time since they'd been locked up. “You're somewhere else now. It was thirty years ago. We’ll be out of here in no time.”

“I tried to send you a message.”

This was news to Jonathan. “You did?”

“Well, Adrien. I tried to manipulate this woman into letting him know I was alive. But I thought he'd show the letter to Gabriel and Gabriel would show it to you. I thought even if she thought the letter was untraceable, that you could still find some magic way of tracking it back to me. But I fucked it up,” Adele said bitterly, her voice breaking. “Like I fucked everything up back then. I never even got far enough to ask. Could you have traced it, do you think?”

“I don't know, Adele,” Jonathan said wearily. “I try not to focus on the What Ifs anymore.”

“On some level,” Adele whispered, “I think I always knew I never really left.”

“Jesus Christ, Adele.”

“Thirty years. My dreams don't usually last that long, even in here.”

Jonathan bit back a groan. “I knew I never should have let you come on this mission,” he muttered. “Two empaths was redundant.”

“Oh, don't start that again, Jonathan,” Adele snapped, her tone suddenly much more present and focused. “My radius is five times yours. This mission would have failed without me and you know it.”

She was right, but Jonathan wondered if he should replay the argument they'd had a few days ago all the same, since it seemed to be grounding Adele more than anything else Jonathan had tried.

“I could have done it,” he said, putting a bit of sulk into his tone.

“There wasn't even a damn warrant out for you. How were you going to get yourself arrested without me?”

Jonathan shrugged. “The reporter could have had one of her double agents slip the Order some information about me, enough for them to-”

“That would have been a good way to lose a double agent,” Adele muttered. She looked at the door. “The fighting stopped. I can’t hear it anymore.”

She was back. Jonathan refrained from sighing in relief, though of course Adele could feel it all the same. “Yeah,” he said. “A while ago.”

“Nobody’s come.”

“Not yet.”

“That’s not a good sign, Jonathan.”

Jonathan shrugged. “Can’t do much about it right now, can we?”

Adele sighed and leaned on her brother’s shoulder. “No,” she agreed, “I suppose not.”

They’d given up on trying to figure out what was going on outside their cell hours ago.

After being caught, the four of them had been separated and questioned again, far more forcefully than the first time and with far greater security measures in place. After a few hours, however, there had been a marked emotional shift, and they'd been quickly thrown into cells and abandoned.

Well, Jonathan and Adele assumed that's what had happened to the other two as well. They only knew what had happened to them. Given the powerful anti-empathy spell wound into the walls, Jonathan figured the only reason they weren't by themselves was because setting up a second cell that blocked their abilities would have taken too much time and effort.

The Dumas siblings were half asleep when Jonathan finally heard the sound of nearby footsteps coming closer down the hall, stopping every few seconds. Jonathan gently shook his sister awake, bracing himself again as she regained consciousness and remembered where she was.

“Someone’s-” Jonathan stopped talking as the face of Marinette, of all people, appeared at the small window in the door. Jonathan had never expected to feel so relieved to see her. From the look on her face the feeling was mutual, although Jonathan couldn't sense her through the door to say for certain.

Marinette turned to her right. “Emma! I found them!” She turned back. “Why couldn't Dani locate you two? We found everyone else over an hour ago.”

“They didn't want us knowing what was going on, so they cast an empathy block,” Jonathan said. “Apparently it goes both ways. I'm guessing we won? Is… did everyone make it?”

Marinette nodded. “It was closer than I'd like,” she said, “but the whole family’s-”

Marinette was interrupted by Adele's sudden laughter. “Marinette,” she said, almost giddily, “we have to stop meeting like this!”

Marinette's eyes widened with concern. “Adele, are you alright?”

Jonathan shook his head. “Just get her out of here,” he said, more harshly than he'd intended. Marinette nodded and shouted for Emma again as Jonathan slowly, stiffly, got to his feet, then pulled his sister up after him.

“Grandma!” Emma exclaimed, relieved, as she reached the door. “Hang on, I’ve got the keys, one second.” She fumbled with the lock for a few seconds, and then the door was open. Adele was through the doorway in a flash, leaning against the hallway’s opposite wall and taking breaths that were far too deep. Emma took her hand, and as Jonathan exited the cell his sister’s overwhelming relief and gratitude crashed into him.

“Where’s…” Adele was breathing too hard to finish the question.

“Everyone’s upstairs,” Emma said. “Louis is fixing up Grandfather and Uncle Ferd. Come on, I’ll take you.” Adele nodded and straightened, her anxiety starting to die down ever so slightly as she quickly followed after her granddaughter.

Jonathan hung back and let Adele and Emma hurry on ahead, then turned to Marinette. “What’s wrong?” he asked quietly.

Marinette hesitated. “The Order got their Miraculous detectors working.”

Jonathan relaxed. “Oh, that,” he said. “Yeah, we knew that already. It came up during our interrogations.”

“It came up during your public execution announcements, too. Along with the official warrants for me and the kids. Everybody in Paris knows who we are now. Every secret identity in our family has been completely exposed. Including yours.”

Jonathan froze. _Of course, of fucking course, after four months of doing everything possible to free this city, this continent, of course this is what was waiting for you at the end of it._

Jonathan shook it off and started walking again. “Whatever,” he muttered. “Thirty years later than I deserved, I guess.”

“Yes, it is,” Marinette snapped. She took a deep breath, and Jonathan was surprised to feel a flash of guilt, regret. “We wouldn't have succeed… the kids wouldn't have made it… if you hadn't figured out the Order’s delayed magic dampener, the one they set up last month. So… thank you. Again.”

Jonathan nodded. “I'm glad it helped,” he said softly.

 

* * *

 

Jonathan knew, of course, he’d known for fifty years, that his sister found her husband to be an extremely steadying, calming influence, but feeling the effect directly was something else entirely. She rushed to Gabriel’s arms, burying herself in his embrace in an instant, and the sense of peace and relief that washed over her almost took Jonathan’s breath away. Gabriel, for his part, struggled between rage at the state his wife was in and relief that she was still alive, but after a moment he settled on relief. He wasn’t the only one, either.

“You look terrible, querido,” Ferd said as they entered, and Jonathan grinned and crossed to the small couch Ferd was occupying.

Louis, who was standing over Ferd and healing his quickly-fading black eye, scoffed. “You’re one to talk, you looked worse an hour ago.” He looked at his uncle. “I can get you next if you-”

“I”m fine. Get your grandmother,” Jonathan said, sitting down next to Ferd and taking his hand. Louis nodded and walked away. “What’d I miss?” Jonathan asked.

“We won,” Ferd said, squeezing his hand back, “and everybody made it. The rest is details.”

“Details like keeping the city from being retaken long enough for us to figure out how to take down the barrier?”

“Yeah, little stuff like that.” Ferd yawned. “The prime minister should be here any minute to go over city defenses with Benois. We don’t need to worry about it.”

“We need to worry about the barrier, though. Do we know where the Order was keeping all their information concerning the prison island?”

“Jesus, querido, can we just sit next to each other for a few minutes and take a little time to appreciate the fact that we’re both still breathing?” Ferd asked.

Jonathan sighed. “Yeah, of course.” He kissed Ferd’s cheek. “I’m very happy you’re still breathing. Breathing Ferd is my favorite Ferd.”

Before Ferd could reply, the door to the room opened once more. Jonathan looked up and saw the prime minister. There was a figure standing next to her for half a second, but it quickly transformed into a quickly-moving blur that launched itself right at Marinette on the other side of the room.

“Marinette! You’re alive, you’re alive, I can’t believe it!”

“Oh… hi, Chloé,” Marinette said, somewhat awkwardly, as Chloé Bérégovoy clung to her neck. “It’s, uh, nice to see you, too.”

“Ugh, thank _God_ you’re back, you don’t know what it’s been like in Paris without you.”

“You know, I think I did get a pretty good idea actually-”

“Is Adrikins alive, too?” Chloé asked. Marinette nodded, and Chloé burst into tears. Marinette tried, to no avail, to get Chloé off of her, before shooting a helpless look at Adele.

“Chloé, darling,” Adele said, “come sit next to me, would you? I’m not allowed to get up until my grandson’s done with me, I’m afraid.”

“Oh, Adele!” Chloé released Marinette and quickly went to Adele’s side.

Meanwhile, Chloé’s wife was being approached by General Benois. “Madame Bérégovoy,” he said, “now that Paris is free again, it is imperative we get you up to speed on the state of her security as soon as possible.”

“Me?” the prime minister said, her voice small. “No, I… I don’t think, after everything-”

“Ma’am,” Benois interrupted, “you’ll forgive my directness, but the President’s whereabouts are still unknown. It is highly unlikely he is in Paris, the only unoccupied piece of France, if he is even still alive. The President of the Senate, I’m afraid, we know to be deceased. I know this is unprecedented, but there is no time for an election, do you understand? For now, _you_ are the leader of liberated France, and you must do everything you can to keep her stable and safe until Europe is completely free again.”

Bérégovoy closed her eyes. “I was their puppet,” she whispered. “The people of Paris are not going to feel safe with me as their leader. The things I said, the things they made me-” her voice broke, and she took a deep breath.

“Giselle,” Alya said steadily, “People are going to understand that you did what you had to. We all did what we had to.”

The prime minister laughed humorlessly. “What you had to do and what I had to do, then, were very different things.”

Alya folded her arms. “A few of my people got information from your wife on more than one occasion,” she said. “It was extremely helpful, and there’s no question in my mind where she got it from. That’s going to mean more to people than anything you were obviously forced to say.”

Bérégovoy glanced at Chloé, then looked back at Alya. “I could have done a lot more,” she said.

“You can do more now,” Marinette replied softly. The prime minister considered this, then nodded.

“You’re right,” she said. “Thank you.” She looked around the room. “Thank you to all of you, in fact,” she continued. “I… I’m afraid I wasn’t very aware of what was going on while you were all fighting for this city, being under house arrest, but from what I was told on the way over here it sounds like every single person in this room was instrumental in liberating the city. Paris is forever indebted. If there’s anything I can do to repay-”

“Oh, nonsense,” Marinette interrupted. “There’s no need for any of that, there never has been.”

“Quite right,” Adele agreed.

“If you’re handing out political favors, I could really use a pardon,” Jonathan muttered. Ferd smacked his arm. “What?”

“Now? Really?”

“Can you think of a better time?”

The prime minister frowned. “But of course all the executions are cancelled, I thought that went without saying,” she said, confused. “Being a superhero is only a crime under the Order.”

“I’m not a superhero,” Jonathan replied, and he felt the flash of recognition, the moment the prime minister realized who she was talking to, along with the growing discomfort from everyone else in the room. “You know what, it can wait, we have more important things going on. You should get your security briefing, and I should start working on locating those barrier defense spells.” Jonathan stood and left the room abruptly.

 

* * *

 

Searching for information on the barrier defenses might have taken forever, if Jonathan hadn’t had Ferd to direct his efforts. Ferd had pointed out immediately that since any information on the barrier was likely to be highly classified, they might as well start in the most secure place in the building and work from there. So now they were currently searching through extensive filing cabinets in Thornton’s office, Ferd moving through his set about twice as fast as Jonathan was.

They’d been searching for about half an hour when Ferd happened to glance over and notice Jonathan reading a piece of paper very intently. “Find something?”

For a few moments Jonathan continued to stare at the piece of paper in his hand without speaking, his grip tightening. The edges of the paper began to tear beneath his fingers. “Yes,” he managed to say, his voice tight and controlled.

Ferd raised an eyebrow. “Well? What is it? Something useful?”

“No. It’s…” Jonathan clenched his jaw briefly. “It’s a list,” he said. “They figured out their power source wasn’t completely sustainable. It’s a list of people in Paris, potential replacements for when the superheroes start dying. Citizens who generate magic energy, who could be hooked up to the barrier spell, to extend its lifespan.”

“Ah,” Ferd said. He paused. “Is my name on it?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that explains why I didn’t get sentenced to death along with the three of you,” Ferd said lightly. “Honestly, I was feeling left out. Now I feel special again.”

“This isn’t _funny_ , Ferd.”

“It’s not exactly a surprise, either. Why are you getting so upset about it? Is sending me to that island really worse than what they had planned for you? Public execution?”

“Your name isn’t on here because you helped us take down their defenses,” Jonathan said, his voice rising. “This list predates that by months. They had no idea you were Resistance when they made this list. Your name’s on here because you have magic and you turned down their job offer. That’s it.” Jonathan’s grip tightened even further. “These bastards kidnap my nephew, they take over my city, they plan to kidnap my husband, they think they can just use the people I love like pawns in their pathetic bid for world domination-”

“Oh, good,” Ferd interrupted, with the lightest flash of annoyance, “this is about you. I was confused, since it's my name on the list.”

Jonathan groaned. “Sorry,” he said. He walked over to Thornton’s desk and sank down into the chair. “I just… God, Ferd, I don't know what I would have done if they'd taken you before we got the city back, I honestly don't.”

Ferd grinned wryly. “Not that a part of me isn't flattered by the idea of you going mad with grief and vengeance over losing me,” he said, “but I think we both know you're past that.”

“I don't know,” Jonathan muttered. “The last time something like this happened...not to mention that this time it would have actually been my fault, too.”

Ferd raised an eyebrow. “How’s that, pray tell?”

“Ferd, I _told_ you to turn them down when they offered you that job. I thought it’d be safer.”

“It was safer,” Ferd replied. “It bought us months. Enough time to take Paris back. Now that list is completely moot, at least where I’m concerned. If the city gets recaptured I’m just going to get shot along with the rest of you.”

“You're missing the point.”

Ferd sighed and walked over to his husband. He stood behind Jonathan and bent down, wrapping his arms around him. “No,” Ferd said. “I think I see what this is. You feel guilty, and you're telling yourself it's because you told me to turn down that job offer, even though you know it was the right thing to do. You're telling yourself that because you'd rather not think about the reason you're actually feeling guilty.”

Jonathan sighed, frustrated. “What am I feeling guilty about, then?”

Ferd reached over Jonathan and pulled the list from his grasp. “These people didn't do anything wrong, even in the eyes of the Order,” he said. “They're just convenient. Things to be used. A means to an end. It's not the first time a villain’s seen me in that light, is it? Maybe it hits a little close to home?”

For a moment, Jonathan was speechless. “Fuck,” he muttered, “I’m sorry, Ferd, I’m so-”

“It’s fine.”

“You know I can tell it isn’t,” Jonathan snapped.

“It’s fine for now,” Ferd amended, unfazed. “We don’t have time to deal with it.” Ferd gently placed the list down on the desk. “Come on, if you found that then you must be close to finding the information about the island we actually need.”

Jonathan nodded slowly. “Yeah. Yeah, you’re right.”

 

* * *

 

“So. Good news, bad news?” Alya asked, as Jonathan and Ferd rejoined the others about an hour later.

“Mostly good news,” Jonathan said. He laid out his work on the giant table, even though nobody else present could understand what was written on it. “It’s difficult, but doable.”

“You think five superheroes are enough to take down the barrier?” Benois asked skeptically.

“Four,” Louis corrected. “Someone should stay behind to guard Paris. Probably M-Honey, since her identity hasn’t been compromised.”

“No, not four,” Jonathan said. “But fifty to a hundred could.” He looked around the room, feeling the small wave of understanding that ran through it, before continuing. “The spells keeping the barrier protected are intense, but the spells keeping the current prisoners in line are much weaker. It’s pretty much just a generic magic block and the memory spell. Break those, and you have almost a hundred new allies. I can’t say exactly how many of them will actually be helpful, but at least more than half.”

“If they’ll fight,” Benois said. “Is that a safe assumption?”

“Absolutely,” Marinette said. “Every single person in that place would like nothing more, believe me.”

Benois nodded and turned back to Jonathan’s work. “Walk us through it.”

“Step one,” Jonathan said, “is breaking the anti-magic field. Step two is dispelling the amnesia charms. Both are weak enough that we can set up the spells here in Paris, in advance, and have one of you four activate them when you arrive. After that, everyone on the island will remember who they are and what their powers are, and they’ll be able to use those powers. The rest of it is a lot harder, but straightforward. Not that different from what we did for Luxembourg, actually. Find the anchor points, corrupt the defenses, break the spell.”

“Does that mean we’ll have to bring you and Uncle Ferd?” Dani asked.

“No,” Jonathan said. “We wouldn’t be much help, actually. Corrupting the defenses of this thing is pretty far beyond Ferd’s abilities-no offense, love.”

“None taken,” Ferd said easily.

“So who do we bring?” Emma asked.

“Nobody. The island’s already filled with extremely powerful magicians as well as superheroes, remember? And I know from personal experience that at least one of them is definitely up to the task of casting these corruption spells.” Six faces stared blankly at Jonathan. “Beth,” he specified.

“Beth… Beth as in, Fake Ladybug Elizabeth Renaud?” Alya asked. “You’re sure?”

“Yeah. We’ve worked together before. Well, not exactly, but we’ve sent each other clients. She can do it. Find her, get her to the anchor points, give her the corruption spells I write up, and she’ll pull it off. Find other powerful spellcasters to help her, if you can. The more the better. Everyone else should be fighting through the defenses around the anchor points, and holding off the guards and any Order reinforcements that show up.”

Benois nodded. “Got a map of the island?” he asked, and Jonathan pushed a folder across the table to him. Benois looked at Ladybug. “I could walk you through some basic tactics,” he said. “Strong points of defense, good cover, that kind of thing.” She nodded. “What do you need?” Benois asked Jonathan. “For everything you need to set up before they go?”

“A lot, actually,” Jonathan said, starting to pack up his notes, “but fortunately I can get it all in one place.” He looked up. “Actually, Emma should come with me, I’ll need to walk her through activating the prepared spells.”

“Why Emma?” Marinette asked. She wasn’t nearly as suspicious as she’d been about Emma helping Jonathan a week ago, but she was still guarded.

Jonathan shrugged. “Doesn’t have to be Emma,” he said. “Anybody who’s up for learning how to measure environmental variables and plug them into various polynomials in order to adjust the parameters to the correct-”

“Fine, fine, point taken,” Marinette interrupted, annoyed. “Emma it is.”

 

* * *

 

“Something you want to talk about?” Jonathan asked, after about ten minutes of driving in total silence.

Emma groaned and continued to stare out the passenger side window. “You're as bad as Dani,” she muttered.

“Sorry.” Jonathan waited patiently.

“We saw Dad,” Emma finally said. “Thornton video-called the prison. They wanted him to convince us to surrender.”

“Oh.” Jonathan took a second to absorb this. “How, um, how did he look?”

“Really bad,” Emma said tersely. “But he didn't, you know, do why they wanted, so I guess he's not… I don't know, broken or whatever.” Emma brushed a tear away impatiently. “Of course, who knows what that means for him now. Dani and I both tried threatening them, the guards in that place, they know we’re coming for them, but-” her voice broke, and she stopped talking.

“I don't think they'll kill your father, Emma.”

Emma shot her uncle a look. “Why not?” she asked, with a wave of irritation uncharacteristically intense coming from her.

“The barrier’s weaker than they'd like,” Jonathan replied. “They were already making plans to connect more people’s energies to it, but they haven't been able to yet. And they already lost your mother. They'll be reluctant to kill off another battery.”

Emma blinked. “Oh,” she said, surprised to have gotten a real answer. “Good to know.”

“Actually, that's good news for when you go there, too,” Jonathan continued. “They'll avoid using lethal force against the superheroes you manage to free. If the Order kills too many of them, the barrier falls anyway. So as long as you all keep fighting, one way or the other you'll probably win. Either you'll fight your way through to the barrier anchor to take it down, or you'll force them to kill enough of you that it-you know, now that I'm saying it out loud, it sounds a little too morbid to actually qualify as good news. Sorry.”

Emma laughed. “No, it's fine,” she said. “It's nice to know their hands are tied.”

 

* * *

 

“Holy shit, look who it is,” Sal said as Jonathan and Emma entered his shop. “Hawkmoth himself.”

Jonathan pinched the bridge of his nose. “Look, Sal, you have every right to be mad, but right now we’re trying to take the Order down and we’re kind of in a hurry, so if you could just get it all out of your system upfront, that would be great.”

“You're just the absolute last person I would have suspected, that's all,” Sal replied. He was a little hurt, a little insulted, but mostly he was confused. “After everything you did in the nineties helping your superhero sister and her partner, you know?”

Jonathan blinked. “You didn't even know about that.”

Sal laughed in Jonathan's face. “Right,” he said sarcastically, “because you were _so_ subtle back then, coming in here once a month for, what, two years straight? Always looking for just the thing Butterfly or Paon would need to take down whatever the latest threat was. Oh, and freaking out when your sister got caught up in that Sleeping Beauty incident early on, insisting she absolutely couldn't wait until the superheroes fixed it. How dumb did you think I was?”

“Seriously?” Jonathan asked, incredulous. “You knew? Why didn't you say anything?”

Sal shrugged. “I don't ask personal questions, and I didn't feel like getting dragged into it. Besides, I wouldn't have been able to keep charging you extra for all those last minute rush jobs. It would have been tacky.”

“It was tacky anyway!”

Sal raised an eyebrow. “I'm sorry, have I offended the delicate moral sensibilities of our resident supervillain?”

Jonathan sighed heavily. “Feel better?”

“Yeah, actually,” Sal said, grinning and shaking his head. “Just when I thought the world couldn't get stranger. So what brings you in, anyway?” Jonathan pulled out his list and handed it over, and Sal took a few seconds to skim. “Jesus fucking Christ, it's never anything easy with you, is it? What is this for?”

“We’re taking the barrier over Europe down. Ending this for good. I have a pretty good idea of how to go about it, but we’re gonna need everything on that list and the best spellcasters you can get ahold of as fast as possible to make it happen.”

Sal nodded. “I'll have to check my inventory. There hasn't been much demand these past few months, but there hasn't exactly been a steady supply of out-of-town shipments either. As for magicians… I'll make some calls.” Sal looked up suddenly. “Oh my God, you akumatized your husband.”

Jonathan sighed again, annoyed. “Yeah, I did,” he said defensively. “But like I said, we’re kind of in a hurry, so if we could have this conversation some other-”

“When did he find out?”

“Two months before he asked me out! Jesus, Sal, what kind of person do you think I-you know what, don’t answer that.”

Sal raised an eyebrow, confused. “So what, he’s like, into that, or-”

“ _Sal_. We are in. A hurry.”

“Right, right.” Sal began to turn towards his back room, then seemed to notice Emma for the first time. “Oh, shit, which one’s this?” he asked, excited.

“This is my great-niece Emma, she's-”

“You know what I meant, which one is she?”

“I'm standing right here,” Emma muttered, annoyed.

“Sorry. Which one are you?”

“Oh my _God_ , what part of ‘We’re in a hurry’ was confusing for you?” Emma snapped. “Would you just go check your inventory before the Order takes the city back and executes all of us?”

For a moment, Sal was speechless. “Yeah, of course,” he finally said, before quickly exiting to his back room. Jonathan looked at Emma.

“Finally using that, huh?” he asked. “I was wondering when you’d start.”

“Huh?”

“That, you know, that thing you just did,” Jonathan said. “That supernatural bossiness or whatever that comes with the Peacock Miraculous.” Emma looked at Jonathan blankly. “You didn’t know? What did you think your civilian ability was?”

“I thought I didn’t have one,” Emma said, stunned. “I have magic? Outside of transformation?”

“Sure, all Miraculous holders do,” Jonathan said. “Admittedly your thing isn’t as blatantly useful as, say, empathy, but it’s pretty nice in the right circumstances. You command attention. People are more inclined to listen to you, do what you tell them. It’s not, like, hypnosis, you can’t make somebody do something they don’t actually want to do, but if someone’s on the fence or hesitating it’ll give them a push.”

“Oh,” Emma said. A certain excitement was starting to rise in her, pushing its way past all her present anxieties.

“Your grandfather got a _ton_ of use out of it when he was building his fashion empire out of nothing back in the nineties, actually,” Jonathan continued. “Even with his talent, he would have had a much harder time getting others to pay attention to a twenty-something no-name, invest in him, take a risk on him. You must have noticed that people have a tendency to do what he tells them to do?”

“I guess,” Emma admitted.

“You didn’t think that was _charisma_ , did you?”

Emma grinned. “No,” she said. “I don’t… don’t get me wrong, it sounds great, but I don’t know if I’ll be as comfortable with it as Grandfather is.”

“He grew into it,” Jonathan said. “He was a lot more like you when I met him. You’ll grow into it, too.”

Emma blushed and nodded. “Yeah. Well, I’ll grow into it if I survive the rest of the week, anyway.”

Jonathan sighed. “Yeah. If.”


	48. The Isle of Lost Superheroes: Part One

It took, in Oh-One-One’s opinion, an embarrassingly long time for the guards to realize that Eight was missing. She already knew they were idiots, of course, but this was a whole new level of incompetence, and it really made her wonder if they’d needed to spend four agonizing months perfecting every detail of the escape plan to begin with, or if they might have been able to get someone out weeks ago.

They made it about halfway through breakfast. No one at their table was talking except Three, who was nervously babbling about any random thing that came into her head in an effort to keep the group’s silence from standing out as suspicious. One didn’t bother engaging. There were plenty of mornings when nobody felt like speaking, and in her opinion it was hardly suspicious. What was there to talk about in this place, really? Besides, the entire operation had been kept secret from the rest of the prisoners, so the only other quiet table was the Fives.

One looked across the room at Five-Three-Six. _Adrien Agreste_ , she reminded herself. She still wasn’t used to it. Knowing anyone’s name felt alien to her, after the last four months, and she wasn’t sure how long it would take to start thinking of Six as ‘Adrien’, or of Eight as ‘Marinette’. Maybe it was better that she didn't, it would make it easier to avoid slipping up in front of the guards. The longer it took them to figure out Eight had escaped with her memories, the better.

On the other hand, there was a part of One that felt that the second she got her own name back she’d punch anyone in the face who called her ‘One’ ever again, guards or no guards.

Six or Adrien, whatever One was supposed to call him in her head now, looked strangely peaceful. One wasn’t surprised that he looked happy, of course, but she would have expected more accompanying nervousness. She would have been out of her mind in his shoes. He must know that Eight’s escape would be discovered soon and that, as the guy who’d recently hopped a three meter fence just to kiss her, he’d be the first suspect. And if he wasn’t worried for himself, One would have thought he’d at least be worried for his wife. But no, it was obvious from the look on his face that Six was resigned to his own fate and confident about Eight’s. He was completely certain, somehow, that she’d pulled off the rest of her escape.

One wondered if anyone in her own life had that much faith in her.

“Zero-Two-Seven!” Next to One, Seven jumped in her seat and looked up at the guard shouting at her and storming over to the table. “Where’s your roommate?”

Seven blinked. “What roommate?” she asked innocently.

 

* * *

 

“I don't know anything,” One said immediately, before her interrogator could ask a single word. He sat down across from her and smiled. He was one of the smarter guards, unfortunately. One mentally braced herself as he fixed his gaze with hers.

“Let's not insult one another,” he said gently. “You're an intelligent young woman. You know where Zero-Three-Eight is.”

One shrugged and slouched as much as she was able to with her wrists fastened to the arms of her chair. “None of the others tell me anything. They think I'm a helpless kid.”

“They are very protective of you, yes,” the guard agreed. “Maybe that makes you feel protective of them in return?”

“Nope.”

“Hm.” The guard flipped a folder open. “Maybe that's true,” he said. “You and Zero-Three-Eight didn't really get along, did you? Almost every guard posted at breakfast yesterday reported that you hit her, actually.”

“Uh huh.”

“Why?”

One shrugged again. “I'm sick of her acting like my mother,” she said, as sullenly as she could manage.

“Are you sure that's all it was? She didn't, oh, say something about an escape plan? Something that upset you? Maybe you were jealous, that it was her getting out and not you?”

The sheer injustice of this suggestion hit One like a blow. “Fuck you,” she spat. “You and the rest of the idiots running this place. You think we can't tell you're all terrified of us? You think we don't see you flinching when we walk by? You think we’re cowards like you, that we’d turn on each other, that we aren't all completely united against whatever you think you're accomplishing by keeping us here, that-” One stopped talking as the man suddenly struck her across the face. It wasn't the first time a guard had hit her, of course, although it was the first time this particular guard had, and he'd clearly put all his weight behind it. One glared, fighting back tears as the guard sat back down and composed himself.

“We've gone easy on you in the past,” he said to her after a moment. One scoffed. “That ends right now. No more special treatment just because you're only fourteen.”

One’s sarcastic reply died in her throat. “I'm fourteen?” she asked in a whisper.

A brief flash of anger crossed the guard’s face as he realized he'd revealed something he hadn't meant to. It died quickly though, and he sat in silence for a moment, thinking hard. “That's right,” he said kindly. He looked back at her folder. “You turned fourteen about a month ago. December tenth.” It took every ounce of One’s self control to not yank at her restraints, to not lunge forward and try to catch a glimpse of the folder in the man’s hands. “Would you like to know more? Your name, perhaps?” One tried to say something, anything, but all she could do was nod. “Well, then. Maybe we can make a deal. You tell me something I want to know-where Zero-Three-Eight is-and I tell you something you want to know. Who you are.”

The tears One had been fighting finally broke free, and for a few minutes she just sat there as they poured out of her while the guard watched her patiently. But then she blinked them away and set her jaw, looking the guard right in the eye. “I already know who I am,” she said, her voice unwavering.

The guard raised an eyebrow. “Oh? Who?”

“One of the biggest badasses in the world, apparently, if you cowards had to lock me up at thirteen.”

Sighing, the guard closed One’s folder. “Have it your way,” he said.

 

* * *

 

Her interrogator didn't take One back to her usual cell when they were done with her. Instead, she was thrown into a larger cell with the rest of her group, one she'd never seen before. It took up about half the room, and several guards were posted right outside it.

“Jesus,” Seven muttered, rushing towards One as the bars slammed behind her. “What the hell did they do to you?”

“Told me my birthday,” One mumbled numbly, leaning against Seven.

“Really?” Seven waved at Three, who was currently patching up Four to the best of her extremely limited ability.

“Uh huh. Last month. I'm fourteen now.”

“Happy birthday. Remind me to get you a cake when we get out of here.”

“I'm gonna hold you to that,” One said as Three reached her.

“Ó meu Deus,” Three muttered under her breath, looking One up and down in horror for a moment. She caught herself quickly, and took on a professional demeanor. “Alright, let’s have a look at you. Anything you know for sure is broken?” One shook her head as Three began examining the girl.

“Ow!”

“That hurts?” One nodded as Three put the flat of her palm to One’s side, then pulled the girl’s shirt up a few inches and examined her ribs. “I don't know if these are fractured or just bruised, but either way you need to take it easy for a few weeks.”

One looked around their small, crowded cell. “I wasn't exactly planning on practicing gymnastics in here.” One winced as Three lifted up her hand. “Again, _ow_.”

“This looks sprained,” Three said, squinting at One’s left ring finger. “Splinting it isn’t an option, but I can compress it.” Three knelt down, grabbed the bottom of her pant leg, and ripped off a piece of fabric. it wasn't the first time she'd done it today, One realized, as the left pant leg was almost a foot shorter than the right. One looked around and spotted about half a dozen makeshift bandages as One took the scrap and wound it tightly around One’s swollen joint.

“Thanks.”

Three nodded silently, and then glanced at the guards on the other side of the room. “Did you tell them anything?” she asked, her voice almost impossibly soft. One shook her head. “Well, if they question you again, talk.”

“ _What_?” One hissed indignantly.

“They’re going to figure out she got off the island, if they haven’t already. She’s had almost a day’s head start by now. There’s nothing you can tell them that would put her in any more danger than she’s already in at this point.”

“But-”

“One.” Three tied off the bandage. “It would kill Eight to see you like this. You know that.”

“Eight’s not here to see me like this, that’s the whole point.” Three raised an eyebrow. “Fine, fine, I won’t hold out next time. Happy?”

Three’s expression softened, and she pulled One into a hug. It was much more gentle than her usual hugs, and One realized Three was doing her best to be careful of One’s bruises. “You did good,” Three murmured. “Somewhere out there, I’m sure there’s someone who’s very proud of you.”

 

* * *

 

“Something’s different today,” Seven whispered.

One snorted. “How can you tell?”

“No talking!” one of the guards on the other side of the bars yelled at them.

 _That_ wasn’t different. Not since Eight had escaped over a week ago. If someone had asked One before, if life in the prison could possibly get worse, she would have laughed in their face. Now she knew better. Gone was any semblance of privacy, anything resembling a break. Everyone was locked up together and guarded attentively at all times, and none of them had seen any of the prisoners from the other groups since the morning of Eight’s disappearance. There was nothing to do but sit on the floor in silence, maybe exchange a few words on the rare occasion they could get away with it. The monotony of it was almost unbearable.

One leaned against the wall and waited impatiently for the guard to lose interest in glaring at her. A few minutes later she looked at Seven, eyebrows raised. “They’re nervous,” Seven whispered. “That one by the door keeps leaving and coming back.”

One watched the guards silently for a little while, and realized Seven was right. After about ten minutes, the guard near the door left the room once more. When he returned, almost all the color was gone from his face. He joined the other two guards and whispered some report to them. One couldn’t hear what he said, but she could see the way all three guards tightened their grips on their weapons in response.

“Eight?” One suggested.

Seven shrugged. “Maybe. It hasn’t been very long, but-” Seven was abruptly cut off by the loudest noise One could remember ever hearing, a giant explosion that shook the foundations of the building itself. One instinctively ducked, and next to her Three threw an arm around her protectively. The shaking subsided after a few moments, and the guard that kept leaving quickly rushed to the door, locking it.

“What the hell was-”

“Quiet!” the guard snapped. He drew his gun and pointed it at Oh-Two-Four, his hand shaking slightly. “You don’t say anything. You don’t _do_ anything. You just stand there. Next prisoner who talks or moves gets a bullet, got it?” Four nodded silently, and after a moment the guard exhaled and returned his attention to the locked door on the other side of the room.

“It’ll be okay,” Three whispered to One, tightening her embrace. Three’s grip on One’s bruised ribs was painfully tight at this point, but the last thing One wanted was for Three to let go. She never would have admitted it out loud, but there was something almost familiar about Three’s embrace, something soothing, something that made her feel safe. One could put up with a little rib pain in exchange for that. Besides, if she didn’t think about them she could barely feel her bruises at all.

Actually…

Actually, Ohe couldn’t feel her bruises even if she did think about them, she realized with a start. They’d hurt when Three initially grabbed her, but now the pain was completely gone.

“Three,” One whispered. “My ribs.”

“Shoot, sorry,” Three murmured, pulling her hand away.

“No, that’s not what I meant, they’re…” One kept an eye on the guards as she slowly pulled her shirt up a few inches, but they were all staring at the door apprehensively now, and didn’t notice One’s movement at all. One looked down at her torso. The skin, which had been purple and yellow and hideous a few hours earlier, now looked totally normal. “Three, my bruises are gone.”

“What?” Three looked at One’s torso. “That’s… that’s not possible. That’s-”

“Magic,” One said. “That’s _magic_ , Three.”

“How did you do that?” Seven asked, keeping her voice low and an eye on the guards, who were still too distracted to notice what was happening.

“I didn’t, Three did.”

“You don’t know that, you can’t just assume-”

“Here.” One pulled off the bandage around her finger, grabbed Three’s hand, and placed it over her swollen joint. “Try again.”

“I don’t even know how I…” Three sighed. “Fine.” She closed her eyes and concentrated, focusing on her desire to protect One, trying to recreate whatever it was she might have done the first time. A few moments later she pulled her hand back, and watched as One bent the joint fully for the first time in over a week.

“You did it,” One whispered.

“That’s not the first time I’ve touched an injury,” Three said. “If I had magic healing abilities, surely I would have noticed by now.”

“Eight,” Seven whispered. “She must be back, that must be what’s going on. She must have gotten us our powers back somehow.”

One grinned. “No wonder the guards are so nervous. Who knows what powers the rest of us have back now?”

“ _We_ don’t,” Three muttered. “We don’t know. Having them back isn’t much use if we can’t remember what they are or how to use them.”

“Still, I bet if we rushed them, they’d panic.”

“We do not want them to panic, One,” Three said. “If they panic, they’ll shoot.”

“And then you can heal the bullet wounds.”

“ _One_.” Three took a deep breath. “We’re not doing anything until we know more about what’s happening, or until things get a lot more desperate.”

“Fine, fine.” One fell silent, and realized that the noises outside the room had grown louder and more chaotic. Gunshots were going off, guards were yelling, things were breaking. “‘A lot more desperate’ might be happening pretty damn soon,” One whispered.

“Well, if it does we can-”

The door to the room shattered into pieces.

 

* * *

 

“ _More_ guns?” Dani groaned, glaring at the three guards firing uselessly at the shield her brother had thrown up on their way in. “Never thought I’d miss those damn wands all the officers in Paris use.”

“Wands wouldn’t be much use on an island where all magic is blocked,” Emma pointed out, cracking her knuckles. “Besides, I don’t know what you’re complaining about, I’m the one that has to take care of them. Here, hold this.”

“Show-off,” Dani muttered as Emma handed her sister her backpack and promptly disappeared. Before any of the guards could react she’d reappeared behind one, effectively shielding from the other two, her hand already closed around the gun in his hand. She twisted it out of his grasp and threw it aside, then knocked him out with her elbow and repeated the maneuver two more times.

“Room’s clear, right? Nobody invisible lurking in the corner or anything?” Emma asked, looking to Dani for confirmation. Dani nodded, and Louis dropped the shield that had been guarding Dani, leaving only the one covering the doorway. “Great.” Dani tossed Emma her bag back, and Emma pulled out a GPS device.

“ _Please_ tell me we’re close enough to set off the mass dispel,” Dani said. “It was bad enough splitting up from Mom, if we have to clear another four rooms before we can-”

“This’ll work,” Emma said. She pulled out a larger device from her bag and set it down on the floor. Kneeling, she began adjusting various pieces of it with laser focus. “Give me ten minutes, tops.”

“Great.” Dani turned to her brother. “How’re you doing?”

“I could hold this shield up all day, they’re barely throwing anything at it,” Louis said of the guards right outside the room. He kept his hands raised and aimed towards the door, grinning as bullets ricocheted off it harmlessly, then glanced over his shoulder at the rest of the room. “Maybe you wanna get these guys up to speed?” he suggested.

“What? Oh, right.” Dani looked at the seven women trapped behind bars on the other side of the room. They were staring wide-eyed at the three of them, each one a jumbled mess of conflicting emotions. Dani cleared her throat. “Um. Hello. Uh, you’re probably wondering-”

“Did Eight send you?” a young blonde woman interrupted. Dani briefly tried to place her, but couldn’t remember any Order broadcasts about her.

“Eight?” It took Dani a moment to remember what this meant. “Oh, yeah. She’s here too, she’s on the other side of the prison busting Dad out.”

The woman’s eyes lit up. “Are you three her kids?” Dani nodded. “And you’re all here to get us out?”

“Um. Well, it’s a little more complicated than that,” Dani said. “There’s this big spell we need to take down and it’s anchored here, on the island. We can’t do it just the four of us, we’re going to need as many people helping as we can get. I know that’s a lot to ask of you guys, and you’ve been through so much already, but-”

“Of course we’ll all help,” the woman interrupted. “Hang on, let me just translate that for everyone who doesn’t know French.” She turned towards the rest of the prisoners and quickly repeated in English the gist of what Dani had said.

“ _Seriously_?” a voice from someone near the back of the group said. “After all that grief she gave me about ‘Oh you’re the same age as my daughters, I can’t let you stay in this place’, she brings them _with_ her when she comes back?” The girl pushed to the front and looked at Dani and Emma, scowling. “You two don’t look any tougher than me.”

“Chill, One,” the blonde woman said, putting a hand on her shoulder and rolling her eyes. “Sorry, One’s nice once you get to know her, she’s just a little, um…”

“ _Hot_ -headed?” Louis suggested, grinning. “ _Spitfire_ of the group, you might say?”

“Excuse me?” One said, indignant. “You don’t know me. Who the hell do you think you are?”

Louis’ grin widened, and he looked over his shoulder at One and winked. “I’m the superhero that has the honor of rescuing you on this fine day. _Enchanté_.”

Another of the prisoners snorted. “Yeah, that’s definitely Six’s kid.”

“Louis, take it down about ten notches, would you?” Dani muttered in French.

“Why? This is the first rescue mission we’ve had that isn’t just completely depressing, we’re actually winning for once and we’re rescuing _Pyra_ , why can’t I enjoy that?”

“Because, A, she doesn’t remember who she is so she doesn’t get either of those stupid puns you just made, and B, once she _does_ remember who she is she’s going to remember her boyfriend’s a real-life prince and then your dumb attempts to hit on her are going to look idiotic.”

“You know who’s _not_ here rescuing her? Prince Stephen. I, on the other hand-”

“Louis, I swear to God, if you embarrass me in front of Pyra I’ll-”

“Are you two talking about me?” One interrupted, her annoyance growing.

“Sorry,” Dani apologized in English, looking back at the prisoners. They were still all on edge, hopeful but incredibly apprehensive and confused. “Sorry,” Dani repeated, “I’m not doing a very good job of explaining what’s happening. Okay, so, to make a long story short, the people that put you here, they’ve taken over most of Western Europe. The three of us are just a few of the dozens of new superheroes that have emerged since you guys all disappeared. And it’s been a hard fight, because they’ve got this giant magical barrier keeping out everyone else, every other foreign power or superhero that might have been able to stop them. And they’re using your magical energy to power it, the energy that you use to power your spells and superpowers. We figured out how to take it down, but we don’t know what kinds of defenses or reinforcements they’ll send to stop us. We need your help. Everyone’s help.”

Every head turned towards a middle-aged woman in their ranks, a woman Dani vaguely remembered seeing on TV a few months ago but whose name escaped her now. “We don’t remember our powers,” the woman said. “We all want to help, but how can we?”

 _Dr. Inez Ferreira_ , Dani remembered suddenly. The unofficial leader, her mother had said, and now Dani could see why. The woman exuded a calm authority that everyone around her picked up on, even without empathy. “That’s what my sister’s taking care of,” Dani said. “You’ll all have your memories back in… Emma, how many more minutes?”

“Zero.”

“Huh?”

“Brace yourselves.” Emma slammed her hand down on a huge button, and a second later Dani was on her knees next to her, gasping. “You okay?” Emma asked.

“Fine,” Dani said weakly.

“You don’t look-”

“You try sensing a hundred emotional signatures at once of people getting their memories back after four months of amnesia in this place, see how well you take it,” Dani snapped. She took a deep breath and got to her feet slowly. Everyone around her was still reeling, but Dani managed to brace herself enough to handle it. “I know that was a lot to take in just now,” Dani said slowly, “but I’m afraid that was the easy part.”

“We understand,” Inez said. “Get us out of here, and we’ll all help you as much as we’re able.”

“Right. Where are the keys?” Inez pointed, but before Dani could retrieve them another woman had stepped forward and calmly ripped the door off its hinges. “Or that,” Dani said, as the rest of them stared in disbelief for a moment, then quickly filed out. “Okay, so the next step is to go through the rest of the prison and free everybody else, hopefully it won’t take too long now that-”

“Leave that to me,” the blonde woman who’d spoken first said, hurrying over to a control panel near the door. She placed a hand directly over the buttons and closed her eyes.

“What are you doing, Seven? What’s your superpower?” One asked eagerly.

“Marta. And it’s not a superpower,” the woman corrected. “I’m a technomage.” Marta grinned, eyes still closed. “Oh, I missed this. I didn’t realize this was what I was missing, but it feels so good to be back. Aaaaaand… there. All the doors in the prison are now unlocked and opened, and the guards are completely shut out of the entire security system.”

“Wow,” Dani said, impressed. “That is going to speed things up a ton, thank you.”

“Is there some kind of PA system you could make an announcement over from here?” Emma asked. “So we can get everybody on the same page at once?”

“Not from here, but there’s a mic in a room nearby,” Marta said.

“Great,” Louis said. “So we’re ready for me to drop this shield? We can head out, start taking out the guards and making our way to the barrier spell anchor point?”

“Yeah,” Dani said, looking around the room at a sea of resolute faces. “We’re ready.”


	49. The Isle of Lost Superheroes: Part Two

“What the hell was that?” Five-Two-One muttered once the world stopped shaking.

Adrien smiled and leaned against the wall of their cell. “That was my wife.”

“It was a rhetorical question. You don’t know anything more than I do.”

“I know Marinette. It was her.”

“We don’t even know if she made it through that rebellion your kids told you about.”

“Yes, I do.”

Five-Two-One rolled his eyes, scowling in the direction of a random spot on the wall. A few seconds later, Adrien heard him draw his breath sharply. “Six?”

“Yeah?”

“I can see through that wall.”

“You _what_?” On the other side of the bars, two of the guards looked over at Adrien, every muscle tensed, hands hovering over their weapons. Adrien fell silent, and Five-Two-One waited for them to relax before continuing in a whisper.

“I can see through that wall.” Five-Two-One narrowed his eyes, then slowly scanned the room. “I can see through all the walls, actually, if I focus just right. I can see the other cells, the guards, and,” he squinted at the corner to their right, “and I’m assuming the woman in polka-dotted red and black spandex is Oh-Three-Eight.”

Adrien’s face split in a wide grin. “Told you.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Five-Two-One kept his gaze fixed. “She just split up from three other superheroes. They’re making their way to the other side of the prison, she’s coming this way.”

“Three others?” Adrien asked, stiffening. “Purple butterfly, turtle in camo, and,” Adrien hadn’t seen Emma transformed yet, but he’d had enough time to make a fairly educated guess as to which one she'd gotten, “something peacock themed?”

“Yes, yes and… yes, I think so. Your children?”

Adrien nodded, frowning. “Why would she bring them here?”

Five-Two-One shrugged. “Ask her yourself, she’s making pretty good progress carving her way through the guards between there and here.” He glanced at the other side of the cell, but nobody else in their group was close enough to speak with or move to without drawing the ire of the very anxious guards. “Wonder what powers everyone else has now. What… what are you doing.”

Adrien ran his fingers through his hair again. “Making myself presentable.”

“For who?”

“For the wife I haven’t seen in over a week, who do you think?” Adrien gave his hair another ruffle. “Is it working?”

“Of course it isn’t working, the guards have been beating you within an inch of your life every day since she vanished. Do you have any idea how much dried blood is still in your hair?”

“So… more tousled, less tousled? Should I attempt a side part? Help me out here.”

Five-Two-One rolled his eyes and returned his attention to the wall-or, more specifically, to what lay beyond it. About ten minutes later, he smiled for the first time since Adrien had met him. “Time for a distraction,” he whispered, before stepping away from the wall towards the bars. He put each hand to a bar, leaning heavily and grimacing, and started stamping his foot loudly.

Immediately, all five guns were pointed at him. “What are you doing?” the most senior guard demanded.

“Lo siento,” Five-Two-One said, “mi pierna tiene hormigueos-“

“ _English_ ,” the guard snapped. “You have three seconds to explain yourself or we open fire.”

“Sorry,” Five-Two-One said, continuing to stamp his foot, “como se dice-how do you say, in English, the feeling all over the leg, the pain of blood returning?”

The guard looked confused for a moment. “Your leg fell asleep?”

“Ah, yes! I am waking up my leg.” Five-Two-One leaned more heavily on the bars. “And, ah, how in English do you say, ‘¡te pillé!’?”

Before any of them could respond, Ladybug kicked the door in. The string of her yo-yo was around two of them before any had even looked her way. She pulled hard, and as the two banged together and knocked each other out she used the momentum to launch herself feet-first at the remaining three.

One of them managed to fire a single shot in Ladybug’s general direction, but she easily dodged the attack. Once she’d knocked every gun out of its owner’s hand, there was no question of her victory.

Ladybug didn’t even wait for the last guard to hit the floor before she had the keys off the far wall. She unlocked the cell door, flung it open, and the next thing she knew she was in her husband’s arms.

“I missed you so much,” Ladybug murmured into his chest. She inhaled deeply, taking in the scent of him, doing her best to ignore the metallic undertones.

“The kids-“

“Are currently working on getting everyone their memories back. It should be any minute now. I’m sorry,” she added in a rush, “I didn’t want to bring them, if there had been any way of pulling this off with them staying safe at home-of course, ‘safe’ is probably an overstatement where Paris is concerned these days, but-“

Adrien kissed her forehead, cutting her off mid-ramble. “We’ll keep them safe.” Ladybug nodded, then pressed her head back to her husband’s chest, drawing comfort from his heartbeat.

“Did I hear that right?” Five-Two-One said impatiently, all business once more. “About our memories?”

Ladybug nodded again, then took a step back so she could address the rest of the group. “That’s right. A mass dispel should be going off any moment now. And we’ve already disabled the magic block on the island, so you all have access to your magic and superpowers.”

“Except for those of us who get their powers from some artifact,” Five-Two-One corrected, staring pointedly at Ladybug’s earrings. “Not all of us got to take a trip home first to pick up our things.”

“That’s true,” Ladybug admitted, “but we’re hoping that’s not the case for too many-oh!” Her eyes lit up suddenly. “Speaking of, I almost forgot.” Reaching to her hip, Ladybug grabbed a small silk pouch and held it up in front of Adrien. “I know it’s usually the husband giving his wife a ring,” she said, grinning, “but we’ve never exactly been a traditional couple, have we?”

Her meaning sunk in half a second later, and Adrien quickly kissed Ladybug before taking the pouch and emptying it into his hand. There was a flash of green light, and before Adrien could say a word he found himself on the receiving end of the most aggressive head bunting of his life, courtesy of one tiny god of destruction.

“Plagg, _ow_ ,” Adrien laughed, as Plagg bunted his head into Adrien’s jaw a second time. “I missed you too, buddy.”

“Missed you?” Plagg said, offended, hovering in front of Adrien’s face. “Don’t flatter yourself, I didn’t _miss_ you.”

“Oh, yeah?” Adrien asked smugly, rubbing the spot between Plagg’s ears and drawing out a purr. “Pretty affectionate greeting for someone who didn’t miss me.”

“You’re covered in weird smells,” Plagg said defensively. “I needed to re-mark you as mine, that’s all.”

Adrien’s grin widened, but before he could respond there was a sudden energy pulse. It swept through the room in an instant, pushing everyone back a step. “What was that?” he asked, quickly sliding his ring back on.

“The dispel, I hope.” Ladybug looked at Five-Two-One. “Do you-“

“Yeah,” he said, oddly subdued. His eyes were staring into the middle distance, his focus clearly turned inward. “Yes, I,” he took a deep breath and let it out slowly, “I remember.” He looked at Ladybug and held out a hand. “Diego Ortega.” Ladybug shook his hand, then scanned the rest of the prisoners in the cell. All were similarly stunned.

“Everyone’s memories are all back at once?” Adrien asked. “How on earth did the kids pull that off?”

Ladybug scowled. “Your _uncle_ rigged something up. He’s been very helpful,” she said begrudgingly.

Adrien’s eyebrows shot up. “I can only begin to imagine, if you’re willing to admit it.”

Ladybug sighed. “The kids would be dead without him,” she said softly, crossing her arms and hugging her chest tightly. “A few times over, probably. They’d be dead without your parents, too, and a lot of other people. I’m not sure there was even time for me to get the full list.” Adrien paled but said nothing, opting instead to simply wrap an arm around Ladybug’s shoulders and kiss her forehead gently. “These people, Adrien, we’ve never fought anyone like them before. They’ve taken over everything, Paris was barely recognizable when I got back. Curfews, censorship, public executions,” she shook her head, “and all justified by their hatred of superheroes. It didn’t matter to them that the heroes they were fighting were only fourteen. How does an entire group of people become that evil without anybody noticing?”

“I don’t know,” Adrien said, “but people like that never hold power for long. We’ll defeat them.”

“What’s wrong with Six’s uncle?” Diego asked abruptly.

“Huh? Oh, he was our first nemesis,” Adrien explained. “Thirty years ago. Long story.”

“And he’s working for you guys now? Must be nice. Every time I think I’ve gotten through to _my_ nemesis, she just… she just… she…”

“She what?”

“She’s _on the island_ ,” Diego said.

Adrien’s eyes widened. “There are _supervillains_ here, too?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t flatter her enough to call her a super anything,” Diego said, annoyed. “She’s just mercenary. And now she’s seen my face, she’s going to realize I’m… this is a nightmare, my secret identity is shot to pieces.”

“It was shot to pieces four months ago, I’m afraid,” Ladybug said. “Most everyone’s identities have been exposed.” She looked at Adrien. “Ours included.”

“One problem at a time,” Adrien said. “How are we getting everyone off the island?”

“Ah. Well, we’re not,” Ladybug admitted. She took Adrien’s hand and squeezed it apologetically. “Not right away, that is. You see, I’m not exactly back to help free everyone here so much as I am back to recruit everyone here to help free, well, Western Europe.” Ladybug gave everyone a quick rundown of the situation, and once it had been translated so everyone understood there was a moment of silence as it all sunk in.

“Well,” Adrien finally said, “it sounds like there isn’t much time to waste. Plagg, claws out!”

 

* * *

 

About twenty meters down the hallway, a guard turned the corner and ran about two steps towards the heroes before a giant fireball that was more force than burn collided with his chest, blasting him into the far wall and knocking him out cold.

Louis didn’t quite manage to smother the noise of excitement that escaped from his throat. “Do that again.”

“Louis,” Dani said under her breath, “I am _begging_ you, be less of a dork right now.”

Chaos had broken out immediately, once every cell door was unlocked and all the prisoners were armed with both their powers and their memories. Marta’s announcement over the loudspeaker, quickly summarizing everything that had happened and was happening, imbued the chaos with some degree of purpose and direction. Everyone was now slowly making their way outside, taking out each and every guard they ran into on the way. The Agrestes were hanging back, allowing most of the prisoners to run ahead of them, because they’d sworn to their mother they’d stick together, and Louis was doing his best to revive any fallen prisoners on their way out.

Pyra allowed herself a small, self-satisfied grin as the unconscious guard crumpled to the floor. Her frizzy brown hair had turned its iconic bright copper after the first fireball she’d thrown, and her mood had done a complete one-eighty. “I’m sure I’ll be doing that again,” she told Louis. “You have no idea how good it feels, after everything.”

“Oh, we’ve got some idea,” Emma said. “We’ve been looking forward to this ourselves, after what these guys did to our-Dani?”

Dani had stopped suddenly in the middle of the hallway, a faraway look on her face that her siblings had now come to recognize. “I just felt… there are more people on the island all of a sudden,” she reported after a second. “Must be another three dozen signatures, easy. Outside, near the anchor.”

“Reinforcements?” Emma asked. “Well, that didn’t take long.”

“Three dozen nobodies, or three dozen top-tier magicians like Carew?” Louis asked.

“I can’t tell,” Dani said. “They’re afraid, they’re angry, that’s all I know.”

“Either way,” Emma said, “we should get out there as fast as-”

“Duck!”

Without thinking, all four teens dropped into a low crouch, and an instant later a bolt of lightning shot over their heads, taking out the three new guards they hadn’t noticed approaching.

“Watch your backs, children, you can’t be so careless at a time like this,” a second voice scolded. The four of them turned to look at their rescuers as they stood back up. The first was a young woman, at most thirty, with dark features and tiny sparks still discharging from the tips of her fingers. The second woman was easily twice her age and a full foot shorter.

“Sorry,” Dani said, “we were just-”

“Oh, come off it, Dottie,” the first woman interrupted cheerfully, “like I didn’t just rescue you the exact same way five minutes ago.”

“Beth and I had it under control, Esperanza, we were fine without you.”

“Beth was fine. _You_ , on the other hand, were two seconds from being pummeled by the guards. Right, Beth?” Esperanza turned to look at a third prisoner, who had just turned the corner and was jogging to catch up with them.

“Those guards won’t be waking up any time soon,” Beth said smugly as she joined the other two.

Emma recognized her first. “Oh my God, you’re Elizabeth Renaud,” she said.

Beth frowned. “Yes? I’m sorry, have we met? I only just got all my memories back ten minutes ago, there might still be some holes.”

Emma shook her head. “No, you don’t know us, but we were looking for you.” She turned to Pyra. “You go on ahead, if you see our parents tell them we found Beth and we’ll be right out?” Pyra nodded and quickly waved goodbye as she took off running for the exit.

“Why were you looking for me?” Beth asked, a note of suspicion in her voice.

“Right. Um, you heard the announcement? Well, we’ve got the spells for corrupting the barrier,” Emma pulled out a thin stack of papers and handed them to a surprised Beth, “and we were told you could cast them.”

Beth quickly scanned the first few pages of spells, her eyes going wide. “Who wrote this?”

“I think there were like ten different magicians working on it, I don’t know their names, but our Uncle Jonathan was in charge of all of it. He’s the one who cracked the original-“

“Oh, Dumas?” Beth interrupted. Emma nodded. “That’s a relief, he’s competent and I doubt I’ll have the time to do the proofreading I’d usually do before casting something this crazy. Don’t fancy blowing myself up, you know?” She folded the pages, tucked them under her arm and started moving briskly down the hallway. Everyone quickly followed. “So that’s how you know who I am, then? Your uncle?”

“Um. Well, he suggested we find you, but _technically_ the reason we know who you are is I, ah, might have accidentally tricked the Order into thinking you were Ladybug,” Emma said. “Sorry about that.”

“For what?” Beth asked. “That sounds awesome.”

“Well, uh, it kind of put a lot of their attention on your family. I think your sister was in jail for almost a week.”

Beth laughed. “Oh no, imprisoned for an entire week?” She looked around at the prison that had been her home for the past four months and rolled her eyes. “I can’t begin to imagine what _that’s_ like. Don’t beat yourself up, I’m sure Anne was fine.” Beth noticed Emma’s face, and her expression softened. “Seriously, Anne might not have magic but she’s tough, she can take care of herself. And don’t get me wrong, I do miss her. I was about to visit her and her kids, actually, before all this happened. Last thing I remember before waking up here was packing my overnight bag.”

Dottie patted Beth’s shoulder, even as she was struggling to match Beth’s pace with her shorter legs. “You’ll see them soon,” she said confidently. “We’ll all get right back to where we left off once all this is over, isn’t that right Esperanza?”

“Gosh, I hope not,” Esperanza said casually. She, unlike Dottie, was having no difficulty keeping up. “Before I woke up here, I _might_ have been in a different prison. Much nicer than this one, obviously, but still, I’d prefer not to go back.” Five jaws dropped in unison, and Esperanza laughed.

“Prison?” Beth repeated, sounding more amused than shocked. “What did you _do_?”

“Wait, I recognize you,” Emma said suddenly. “You’re that jewel thief, right?”

“First of all,” Esperanza said patiently, “is it really thieving if the gem in question was already stolen from India four hundred years ago? I mean, really, at this point why does the Smithsonian have more claim to it than anybody else? Second, I really think a title like ‘jewel thief’ ought be reserved for repeat offenders, don’t you? It was just one little diamond.”

“ _Little_?” Emma repeated incredulously.

“Trust me,” Esperanza said, grinning, “the Hope Diamond is _much_ smaller than you think it is.” Beth and Dottie laughed, and as the five of them turned a corner they saw the prison exit only ten or so meters ahead. Esperanza’s grin faltered slightly, and she turned to the kids. “Look, it’s not going to change anything,” she said, “because Beth’s my girl and I’ll help her see this thing through no matter what, but… I mean, if everybody else here is fighting for their freedom and I’m just fighting for the privilege of going back to my first prison, that would kind of suck, wouldn’t it?”

“Everybody else here is fighting for _Europe_ ,” Dani muttered, and Emma shot her an annoyed glare before turning back to Esperanza.

“It would,” she agreed. “I can’t promise anything, but we could put in a good word with… whoever, when all this is over. And for what it’s worth our uncle, the guy who wrote all the spells we needed, is kind of in the same boat. I mean, his stuff was thirty years ago but it was also _way_ worse than stealing the Hope Diamond. But he’s been helping the Resistance since day one, and that means a lot to the people that have lived through this occupation. What we do here today, that’s gonna mean a lot to people, too. I promise.”

Esperanza nodded. “That’ll have to be good enough, I guess,” she said. She took a deep breath, then adopted her grin once more. “Alright, let’s show these bastards what we’re-“

“That was _Jonathan_?” Beth said, after doing some basic arithmetic in her head. “Million years old, husband wears all those dorky sweater vests, snapped at me once for calling him after eleven?”

“I...guess?” Emma said, confused. “Look, it’s a long story-“

“That we absolutely do not have time for,” Dani interrupted. “Second wave of reinforcements is here, we have to go. Now.” The rest of them nodded, and they quickly moved outside, to where the battle was in full swing.


	50. The Isle of Lost Superheroes: Part Three

Fighting alongside Chat was the most right anything had felt to Ladybug in a long, long time. Every punch, every leg sweep, every yo-yo trick, everything she did was counterbalanced by his own kicks and punches and tricks. She’d been holding back without realizing it ever since getting her earrings back, keeping her moves cautious and calculated. Now Ladybug was flying free, moving through the battlefield like a dancer on a ballroom floor, nothing premeditated, everything pure instinct and second nature. It was exhilarating. It was everything she was supposed to be. It was home.

It was almost wonderful enough to distract from how much trouble Chat was having keeping up.

Nearly all of the original guards had been taken out, their batons and guns no match for the prisoners once magic was restored to the island. The first wave of reinforcements, however, was proving a little more difficult. Unlike the guards, they had magic and they were going all out with it. They’d appeared close to the anchor point of the barrier spell, a spot about a hundred meters west of the prison. When Ladybug and her children had arrived on the island, there was nothing marking the nondescript spot in the grass a ways away from the prison. Now it was surrounded by a giant domed force field, yet another magical barrier that had to be defeated if they were going to get close enough to the anchor point of the barrier that really mattered, the one over all of Western Europe.

Ladybug and Chat were at the front lines, helping to carve a path, when suddenly dozens of new Order guards appeared out of thin air and started flinging spells. Biting back a groan, Ladybug quickly dropped to the ground, narrowly dodging a blast.

Next to her, Chat wasn’t quite as fast.

“Chat!”

“Just a graze,” Chat insisted, flashing Ladybug a grin even as he lay on the ground clutching his arm. “I’m just a little out of practice, four months rusty. It’s fine.”

Ladybug almost started yelling at him, almost pointed out how he’d been short of breath since transforming, how the color had been slowly draining out of his face even before he’d been hit. But then his grin faltered ever so slightly, and Ladybug realized that trying to keep her calm was Chat’s way of keeping himself calm. “Take a minute,” she said instead, sitting next to him and taking his hand. “We’ve done most of the work, the others can clear the rest of the way.”

Chat nodded, then took a couple of deep breaths as their fellow prisoners raced by them, continuing the fight. “Tell me about the kids,” he said.

“Huh?”

“While I’m taking that minute,” Chat explained. “Catch me up.”

“Oh.” Ladybug looked back over her shoulder. “They should be out soon, they had to go to the other end of the prison to-”

“I know, I know,” Chat interrupted. “I meant…” he paused, collecting his thoughts. “They’ve got _Miraculouses_ , bugaboo.” The corners of his mouth picked up in the shadow of a grin. “I know we were trying to hold it off, I know this whole mess is everything we didn’t want for them, but when I saw them on that screen a few days ago I was so _proud_. Terrified, obviously, but proud. Our kids, Miraculous holders. What’s that like?”

“Oh, let’s see,” Ladybug said. “Well, Emma’s capable of being anywhere in Paris in the blink of an eye, so now she’s impossible to ground. Dani’s a better lie detector than your mother. And Louis is, arguably, now our boss. So in short, our authority as parents has been thoroughly shredded.”

Chat laughed. “Well, they’re teenagers, we knew our days on that front were numbered.”

Ladybug smiled and nodded. “They’re really good,” she said softly. “They’ve done so much in four months, saved so many people, gone up against so much more than we did at their age. And they work so well together! I never would have believed it four months ago.”

“Yeah?” Chat exhaled slowly. “Alright, I think I’m good. Let’s get back to it, shall we?” Ladybug squeezed Chat’s hand once more, then stood and helped him to his feet. “I’m fine,” he insisted, “you don’t have to…” Chat trailed off as he took in the sight of the battle now raging around the shield. “Um. Did I get hit harder than I thought, or is that an elephant?”

“No, that’s an elephant,” Ladybug said calmly.

“Uh huh. Is it… is it on our side?”

“Pretty sure, yeah.”

“Oh. Okay. That’s good.”

By the time they reached the force field, all the Order reinforcements within view had been knocked out. The force field, however, was still very much intact.

“Nice of you two to join us,” Diego said as Chat and Ladybug neared the anchor point. He was standing right in front of the dome, glaring at it, his arms folded and there was a familiar scowl on his face.

“Oh, well, we were in the neighborhood,” Chat replied easily. “Can you see through that thing?”

Diego nodded. “There are about two dozen guys on the inside powering it. So far, nothing we’ve thrown at it has even made a dent as far as we can tell.”

Frowning, Chat turned to Ladybug. “Cataclysm?”

“Maybe,” she said, though she sounded uncertain. “I’m not sure-”

“Eight!”

Ladybug whirled around, and her face broke in a wide grin. “Caroline!” Ladybug grabbed the young hero as she approached and pulled her into a hug before she could object. “Are you alright?”

“I’m _fine_ ,” Pyra said, pulling away defensively. “Jeez, some things never change. Your kids are on their way.”

“You saw our kids?” Chat asked, the relief in his tone obvious.

“Mm hmm,” Pyra said. “Those kids that are the same age as me, right?” she asked, looking back at Ladybug. “That precious, fragile, so-young-you-couldn’t-possibly-allow-them-to-take-any-risks-for-others-as-a-superhero age, that’s them?” Chat laughed, and Ladybug allowed herself the hint of a wry smile.

“Yes, yes, point taken,” Ladybug said. “What’s keeping them?”

“They picked up someone they were looking for. They should be here soon.” Pyra looked over Ladybug’s shoulder at the force field. “What’s that?”

“The Order’s reinforcements set it up,” Ladybug said, crossing her arms as she turned back to stare at it. “We have to take it down if we’re going to get close enough to corrupt the barrier spell.”

Pyra nodded, then flicked her hand towards the shield, aiming an oversized fireball at it. The shield absorbed it easily, and Pyra shrugged. “That’s everything I’m bringing to the table,” she said apologetically.

“Looked cool, at least,” Chat said.

Pyra grinned. “Yeah, your son thought so, too,” she said smugly.

“Oh, God,” Ladybug muttered to herself. She sighed, then looked around. “There must be someone who-”

“Mom!”

Ladybug and Chat turned in unison, both nearly laughing in relief at the sight of their three children making their way towards them. Chat lifted his hand to wave, and a second later, to his great surprise, his daughter’s arms were wrapped tight around his chest.

“I missed you so much,” Emma whispered, her voice breaking slightly, “I didn’t know if they’d-what they’d do, after we-and you looked so, when we saw you, and we didn’t know-”

“Shhh,” Chat whispered, hugging his daughter tightly. “Everything’s fine, everything’s going to be fine.” He kissed the top of her head, then looked back to his other two children, who were currently approaching at top speed, Dani shouting something angrily as they did. “You know, I don’t think your siblings are too happy about being left behind,” he said.

“Oh, whatever, they got all the cool powers, they can let me have this,” Emma said, tightening her embrace. Chat laughed softly, and continued to hold her close until Dani and Louis had just about reached them.

“... the hell, Emma, you couldn’t take half a second to grab our hands first?” Dani was shouting angrily as she approached. Chat gently pulled away from Emma, and Dani was immediately in his arms. “You’re okay,” she whispered, as though she couldn’t quite believe it. “You’re okay?”

“Of course I am,” Chat said confidently. “My Miraculous came with nine lives, you know.” Dani laughed, then stepped aside for her brother. Chat reached for his son, arms wide.

Instead of returning the embrace, however, Louis pressed all five fingertips of his right hand together and, the second he was close enough, jabbed them right at Chat’s chest, instantly knocking his father to the ground flat on his back.

“Oh my God, Louis, _again_?” Dani groaned. “What is wrong with you?”

“What was I supposed to do, just let him walk around like that?” Louis asked defensively. “He’s a mess, it’s bad enough he’s transformed.” He looked down at his father. “Feeling better?”

“Uh.” Chat blinked up at him, confused. “Yeah, actually. A heads up next time would be appreciated, though.”

Ladybug snorted as she offered Chat her hand and helped him back to his feet. “Just be glad you’re still conscious, he knocked me out for the better part of a day when I got back to Paris.”

“Yeah, and I wish I could do a full heal now,” Louis said apologetically, “but we kind of need you awake until this is all over. What I just did was kind of, like, the magical equivalent of an adrenaline shot to the heart. It should get you through today, though.”

Ladybug looked at Chat, her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Did you let the kids watch Pulp Fiction?”

Chat looked away. “So, uh, what are we going to do about this force field?”

Rolling her eyes, Ladybug looked at her son. “Can you tell what kind of magic it is?” she asked him.

Louis studied the shield for a moment. “It’s basically the same kind of shield Thornton set up at the Luxembourg,” he said.

“So I can get through, teleport us inside?” Emma asked.

“Over my dead body,” Ladybug said immediately, “are you three teleporting yourself into another trap for the second time this week.”

“But this time-”

“What about Cataclysm?” Chat suggested again.

Louis shook his head. “No, the shield is pure energy, you’d need something physical to channel Cataclysm into it. But even if you could, it’s overkill. We should save it for later.” Louis turned back, looking at the three women who had accompanied them and were now patiently waiting a few meters back. “She could do it.”

Emma followed his line of sight. “Beth?”

“No, her friend. At least, if the quick look I got at her crazy lightning bolt was any indication, I’m pretty sure she can.” Louis waved, and a second later the three of them were walking over.

“Thought we’d give you a little privacy, it looked like a touching reunion,” Beth said as they approached. “Ready for me to start?”

“Not quite,” Louis said. “We need to take down this defense shield first.” He looked at Esperanza. “Think you can do it?”

“Sure,” Esperanza said, cracking her knuckles calmly as she examined the shield. “Shorting out security systems is my specialty. Won’t be a…” she trailed off as she caught sight of Diego. “Oh. My. _God_ ,” she said gleefully. Diego had been paying attention the whole time, but once Louis had pointed out Esperanza, he’d immediately turned around and gone back to glaring at the force field. “Diego Ortega!” Esperanza said, clasping her hands together. “My, my, my, my, my. What’s a perfectly ordinary killjoy like you doing in a place like this?”

Diego finally turned to look at her, his scowl deepening. “Tormenta-”

“Can it be the boring, straight-laced banking executive has a secret life?”

Diego groaned. “Just short out the force field, Tormenta.”

“Happily,” Esperanza said, grinning as she walked over and stood by Diego. She held up her hands and began summoning electricity between them, tiny bolts leaping from fingertip to fingertip, growing in size as they did so. She looked at Diego again and her grin widened. “Didn’t I always say one day you and I would be on the same side?” Before he could answer, Esperanza gathered the electricity she’d generated into a writhing ball and sent it flying into the shield. Like Pyra’s fireball, this one was absorbed by the force field. This time, however, tendrils of electricity immediately began to snake from the point of impact, spreading all throughout the dome and growing brighter and brighter as they did so. When they’d completely covered the dome, there was a sudden flash of light and the force field vanished. Immediately, the waiting prisoners descended upon the now-exposed Order operatives within.

“Okay, kids,” Chat said over his shoulder as the fighting began again, “it looks like the others have this under control, so just hang back and we’ll-and they’re gone.” Chat stared for a moment at the empty space which his children had been occupying mere seconds earlier. “That teleportation thing takes some getting used to, huh?”

Nodding, Ladybug scanned the crowd. The battle was done before she caught sight of their children. “Emma!”

“Yeah?” Emma asked, instantly appearing between her parents.

Ladybug took an involuntary step back. “Don’t run off like that,” she said, trying to regain her composure.

Emma rolled her eyes. “We outnumbered them three to one at least, I barely even got a hit in before it was over.”

Ladybug frowned. “I know, but we should still all stick together. This can’t be the last of the Order’s attempts to stop us, can it?”

“Well… the whole point of doing this immediately after all the uprisings was to split the Order’s focus, but,” Emma sighed, “no, probably not,” she admitted. “But you don’t have to worry so much about the three of us, we know what we’re doing.” Emma had intended this to be comforting, but instead twin looks of guilt flashed across her parents’ faces.

“I know, sweetheart,” Ladybug said gently. She scanned the crowd again. “Where are your siblings?”

“Louis is scouting for people who can help Beth, and Dani’s scanning the prisoners who didn’t get their powers back for possible Champions,” Emma said. “I was helping Louis get people together as fast as possible. We need more runic spellcasters and we need to get defenses up before the next wave of Order reinforcements appears. But I can stay here if-”

“No, no,” Ladybug said quickly. “Go help your brother. Your father and I will make sure everyone else is on guard and ready for when the fighting starts up again.” Emma hesitated. “Go,” Ladybug repeated, gently but firmly. Nodding, Emma gave her parents a quick hug and vanished. Once she was gone, Ladybug sighed and closed her eyes.

“You okay, bugaboo?” Chat asked.

Ladybug nodded, but her eyes were damp when she opened them. “I was just looking forward to being the one to introduce them to everything,” she said. “Miraculouses, superpowers, being a hero. But they mastered it all before we even knew they got them.”

“I doubt that,” Chat said, putting an arm around her shoulders. “There’s still plenty left for us to teach them. Hell, if they’ve been getting superhero lessons from my father, there’s probably plenty for us to unteach them, too.”

Ladybug laughed. “True.”

Ladybug and Chat Noir began moving through the crowd of prisoners, but there wasn’t much for any of them to do other than wait. Ladybug watched from a distance as Beth parked herself right over the barrier’s anchor point and began to cast the spells that would corrupt, weaken, and break it. Ladybug hadn’t seen a lot of magicians at work, even in her line of work, but she’d seen enough to know they usually needed to write what they casted. Beth, it seemed, was powerful enough to write her spells in the air itself. She traced rune after rune in the air before her, each one glowing brightly for an instant before fading away, her fingers dancing lightly from one to the next. As she worked, more and more of the prisoners joined her, each one presumably a powerful spellcaster in their own right, and began following her example, until there were over a dozen of them, all gathered around her.

Emma appeared behind Ladybug and Chat just as a new force field appeared over the group. “Louis found everyone,” she said. “Enough magicians to help Beth, and someone with shields even more powerful than his. We’ve done everything we can until the Order attacks again.”

Ladybug smiled. “Good. Can you take us to Louis and Dani?”

Nodding, Emma took each of her parents by the hand. “Of course. Stick together, right?”

“That’s ri-”

The force of the explosion knocked them back, ripping them apart, and before they even realized what had happened everything went black.

 

* * *

 

Louis came to almost immediately, his head pounding. Slowly he sat up and looked around. Everyone had been knocked to the ground. Some of the prisoners were back on their feet in an instant, frantically looking around for the source of the attack, while others were still unconscious. Blinking, Louis kept scanning. He saw the shield, the one over Beth and the other magicians attacking the barrier, and his blood froze.

The shield was holding. For now, anyway. But a giant beam of pure energy was attacking it, draining its power. The beam emanated from a new defense shield, opaque and blindingly white. From a single glance, Louis could tell it was a hundred times more powerful than the one they’d taken down earlier, easy. With that kind of power, there was no doubt in Louis’ mind who was inside the shield.

Next to Louis, Dani groaned. “What the hell was that?”

“Knockback,” Louis said. “It hit everyone who wasn’t inside the shield. You okay?”

“My head is killing me,” Dani replied, sitting up. “And,” she frowned, “I can barely feel you. There’s something…” she trailed off, trying to organize her thoughts. “It’s like my ears are ringing, but for my empathy instead of my hearing, does that make sense?”

Louis nodded and quickly gave his sister’s energy a look-over. “It’s temporary. You’ll be fine in a day or so.”

“I don’t think I can scout for a Champion like this.” Dani put a hand to each temple, taking a moment to collect herself. “They caught us all by surprise. Why aren’t they attacking?”

In response, Louis pointed at the shield over Beth, and Dani gasped. “They’re focusing all of their magic on taking down that shield and stopping Beth and the others from corrupting the barrier,” Louis said. He got to his feet and helped his sister up. “If they pull that off, it’s all over for us. And if they don’t, it’s all over for them. They know the rest of us don’t matter. They’ll deal with us once the barrier’s safe.”

Emma appeared in front of them suddenly, both of their parents in tow. “Are you two alright?” Ladybug asked, grabbing Dani and Louis both and hugging them tight.

“Fine,” Louis assured her. “Dani’s powers are kind of offline at the moment, but otherwise-“

“Hey!” The five of them turned and saw Esperanza running for them. “That force field attacking Beth,” she said as she approached, slightly out of breath, “is it the same as the one I took down earlier?”

Louis frowned. “It’s a lot stronger,” he said. “And… there’s something else different about it, but I’m not sure what.”

Esperanza let out an impatient huff. “If I have to hit it a few extra times, I will,” she said. “Can I affect it or not?”

“Yes,” Louis said, “but-”

“Great.” Esperanza took another step towards the giant dome, hands spread and facing each other. Once again she built up an electrical current between them, the sparks and bolts jumping from finger to finger as they grew in number and intensity. The lightning ball she formed was almost twice as big as her first one, and before Louis could object any further, she’d sent it flying at the defense shield.

The second it made contact, Esperanza was sent flying backwards, landing hard on her back a few meters away.

“Fuck,” Louis muttered, his eyes flying back to the shield, “ _that’s_ what that is.” Louis pulled away from his mother, and all five of them hurried to Esperanza. To their surprise, Diego had already reached her and was leaning over her, his face drawn.

“Tormenta? Tor… Esperanza?” Diego shook her shoulder, and her eyes opened partway. “¿Está herida?”

Esperanza smiled weakly. “Yo te gusto,” she whispered in faint and teasing singsong before closing her eyes again.

Scowling, Diego looked up as the others approached. “What the hell happened?” he demanded.

“There’s a reflection defense woven into their shield,” Louis said as he knelt down. “It’s powerful, difficult magic. Anything you hit the shield with, you get hit back with just as hard.” Louis placed two fingers on each of Esperanza’s temples, and a few seconds later she came to with a loud gasp. “You okay?” Louis asked.

Esperanza nodded. “Did I get it?”

“Uh…” Louis looked back at the shield. “No. Sorry. You did some damage, but the wizards on the inside must be powering it directly because it’s already repaired itself.”

“Shit.” Esperanza sat up. “Guess I’ll have to hit it harder next time.”

“ _What_?” Diego said. “No. No, you are not doing that again.”

Esperanza looked down at her hand, her fingers spread once more. After a few moments of intense concentrating, a faint spark appeared between her ring and pinky fingers. It quickly faded. “No,” she said softly, “I guess I’m not.”

Louis frowned. “The rebound must target the source of the attack directly. Your magical energy, that is.”

“Is it permanent?” Esperanza asked, her tone flat.

Five pairs of eyes stared at Louis intently, and he hesitated. “I don’t know.”

“My whole life, this has been who I am,” Esperanza murmured. Sighing, she shook her head and looked back at Louis. “If enough of the rest of you hit it at once-“

“Vigilantes!” A loud voice, magically amplified, cried out from within the Order’s dome. The three teen heroes groaned in unison. “By now you have realized that your defeat is inevitable, and soon…”

“Who the hell is that?” Diego asked, as the voice continued on.

“Carew,” Emma said, annoyed. “Head of the Order. He runs everything, he’s insanely powerful, and he is in love with the sound of his own voice. I don’t want to say you guys were lucky to be trapped on this island for the past four months but, well, you didn’t have to sit through any of his mandatory broadcasts, so that’s something.”

“... the era of the so-called superhero, when lawless renegades run amok and upset the natural order, is finally at an end, now that…”

“Again with the natural order,” Dani complained. “If I have to listen to one more bullshit speech about the natural order, I’m going to lose my fucking mind. Sorry,” she added quickly, before her mother had a chance to scold her.

“...respectable magicians, however, still have a place in our new utopia. Therefore, any spellcasters currently attacking the protection shield over our empire who defect now will be welcomed into the Order with open arms. Continue to defy us, however, and your fate will be sealed on this island for the rest of your lives. The choice is yours.”

Emma looked through the shield covering Beth and the other spellcasters. “She… she wouldn’t, right?”

“No way,” Esperanza said confidently.

“Oh, good,” Diego said, “the thief is vouching for the character of our last hope.”

Inside the shield, Beth turned away from her work and faced the Order’s dome. She looked at it for a moment, head tilted thoughtfully. Then she flipped it off with both hands and went back to her spells.

“Ha! Told you,” Esperanza said smugly.

Ladybug let out a sigh of relief. “Thank God.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Louis whispered, his face pale. Everyone turned towards him, shocked. “They’re going to break through our shield before Beth finishes.”

Emma frowned. “Okay, but if we find more magicians on our side to help-”

“It won’t even be close,” Louis interrupted. “They’ve got all their magical power focused on it. And once they’ve stopped us from taking out the barrier, they’ll have more than enough power to knock everyone out and recast the memory spells. Probably hook Mom’s energy back up to the barrier, and ours. If we’re lucky.”

“So, what?” Dani snapped. “Carew’s right, is that what you’re saying? We’ve already lost?”

“We haven’t _lost_ ,” Louis said defensively. “The Resistance still knows where we are and how to take the barrier down. They’ve got control of half a dozen major cities. They’ll be able to spread the word, get in touch with superheroes in other cities, find people who can try again and again. The Order’s hold on Europe is getting weaker and weaker, and it’s only a matter of time until they fall.”

Ladybug shook her head. “No,” she said, her voice full of determination. “No, that’s not good enough. This ends today.” She looked at Chat, and he took her hand and squeezed it. With her other hand, Ladybug threw her yo-yo high in the air. “Lucky Charm!”

The item that fell into Ladybug’s hands was long and thin, and it landed far more heavily than she expected. She looked it over, frowning.

“What is that?” Emma asked. “A lightning rod?”

“I think so.” Ladybug looked up and started scanning everything around them, looking for clues. “I’m not sure what to… give me a second.”

“We have someone with lightning powers on the fritz,” Dani said. “Maybe this is for amplifying her bolts?”

“Lightning rods don’t _amplify_ lightning, they provide a safe outlet for atmospheric discharge via a grounding-”

“Oh my God, nobody cares, Emma.”

“We only have a few minutes! Don’t waste them confusing Mom with misinfor-”

“It doesn’t matter,” Louis interrupted. “Channeling Esperanza’s lightning through that thing wouldn’t do anything, her lightning’s already capable of making contact with Carew’s shield. And if it amplified her bolt, it would amplify the rebound hit, too.”

“‘It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter’,” Dani repeated angrily. “Does anything matter, Louis? Or should we all just give up now and-“

“Kids, _please_ ,” Ladybug said, sounding desperate. “I can’t concentrate when you fight, and I’m missing something. I can’t see what this is supposed to do.”

“Can I see it?” Chat asked suddenly.

Ladybug let out a frustrated sigh “Sure.” She handed over the Lucky Charm. “Got any ideas?” Chat stared at the object silently for a few moments, then leaned forward and kissed his wife on the cheek. “Chat, what…” she trailed off as Chat took off, running towards the Order’s force field at top speed. “What does he think he’s going to do with that?” Ladybug murmured. Her children shrugged in response.

Chat had almost reached the barrier when Dani’s eyes sudden widened, and she whirled on her brother. “What? What’s he doing?”

“He-“ Louis swallowed hard and blinked rapidly. “He’s gonna ch-channel a spell he knows will take out the shield in one hit.”

Ladybug’s face fell. “No,” she whispered, horrified. She took a step after him, unthinking, then another. “No, no, no-”

“Cataclysm!”

Ladybug froze, horrified, as the shadowy decay traveled up her Lucky Charm, quickly reaching the point that Chat had driven into the Order’s defense shield and spreading from the point of impact. As the shield began to rot away, the reflection defense kicked in, sending Chat flying backwards.

It was Chat that was knocked back, but it was Adrien that landed. Ladybug ran to him, her children close behind, and practically threw herself to the ground to hover over him, looking for any signs of life. “Adrien!” Ladybug shook his unconscious form, then turned to her son. “Is he-“

“I don’t know,” Louis said, his face white. “The reflection defense would be bad enough, but he… he Cataclysmed a Lucky Charm, you’re not supposed to.. And he was already so…” Louis took a deep breath, then knelt down. “I’ll do everything I can.” He gently picked up Plagg, lying unconscious next to Adrien, and lay the kwami over his father’s heart. He placed one hand on his father’s forehead, the other flat next to the kwami, and closed his eyes.

It was almost a full minute before Adrien started breathing again, so shallowly at first it was hard to tell it was happening at all. Ladybug let out a short, quiet sob of relief as Adrien’s chest began moving up and down, and she grabbed his hand and held it tight against her heart. “Adrien?” she whispered.

“How… many?” Adrien whispered back, his eyes still closed.

Ladybug’s brow furrowed. “What?”

“Lives. How many… do I have left now?”

Ladybug’s eyes widened, and she let out a much louder, much more irritated sob. “You listen to me, you stupid cat,” she cried, “if you ever do anything that idiotic again you won’t have to worry about that because I will personally strangle each and every one of your remaining nine lives out of you myself! Got it?” Adrien let out a weak laugh and Ladybug leaned over, kissing him fiercely, her tears falling freely.

Louis looked up at his sisters, who had immediately taken defensive stances over them and were now keeping a lookout. His eyes narrowed in confusion. “Why aren’t Carew and his inner circle attacking?”

“They ran,” Dani said.

“What?”

“Their shield fell,” Dani said, “a few of the prisoners attacked, there was a little bit of fighting, and then Carew and his men just… vanished. Teleported away.”

Louis looked over at where the Order’s shield had stood, and slowly got to his feet. “Why would they do that?” he asked. “They still had enough power to attack, to have a decent chance of stopping us. Why give up?”

Dani shrugged, but Emma bit her lip, a thoughtful look on her face. “You said… you said they were repairing the shield continuously, right?”

Louis nodded, confused. “Yeah, so?”

“So they were connected to it. Directly.”

Louis’ jaw dropped. “Oh my God,” he whispered.

“What?” Dani asked. “Why does that matter?”

“Dad didn’t just Cataclysm the shield,” Louis said. “He Cataclysmed the wizards connected to the shield, too. Or, well, their energies.”

There was a moment of silence. “Does that mean what I think that means?” Dani asked.

Louis nodded, his face beginning to split in a wide grin. “Wherever he is, Carew can’t do magic anymore,” he said. “None of them can that were fueling their defense shield.”

The three of them looked at each other. After four months of stress and fear and the weight of the world on their shoulders, the relief was so overwhelming it was hard to recognize at first. Their sighs became grins, their grins became laughter. They were somewhere between laughing and crying when the ground shook, and the sky above them seemed to crack and catch fire, as the magical barrier that had kept them locked in the Order’s nightmare finally fell.


	51. Epilogue

August 28, 2045

 

Adrien Agreste woke up at about two in the morning to an empty bed. There was a moment of disorientation, then panic, then realization. Sighing, he pushed aside the covers, got up, and made his way downstairs. He found his wife sitting on their couch in the dark, staring into space. “Hey, bugaboo,” he said softly, sitting down next to her. “What’re you doing?”

“Decorating,” Marinette whispered back.

Adrien took her hand and glanced around the room. “Looks like you finished.”

Marinette sighed and leaned against Adrien. “I did,” she admitted. “I finished about twenty minutes ago. I just,” she took a deep breath, “every time I tried to get up and go to bed, I start thinking about what happened the last time I did that after staying up late getting ready for the kids’ birthday.”

Adrien sighed. “Yeah,” he said. “I know the feeling.”

“I remember it so clearly,” she said. “Going upstairs, getting into bed, curling up next to you. You were asleep, but you still put your arm around me and held me tight. I felt so _safe_ , Adrien. And then…”

“Shh.” Adrien kissed her temple. “We’ll go up together this time,” he said. “I’ll stay awake until you’re asleep, okay?”

Marinette nodded. “I think I can do that.”

“Good,” Adrien said. “Tomorrow’s a big day, you need your rest. Besides, I don’t want the kids waking up in the morning and finding our room empty this year.”

“Oh God, of course, I didn’t think of that,” Marinette murmured. “Let’s go.”

 

* * *

 

It took awhile for Marinette to fall asleep, and Adrien after her. Once they did, though, they slept well into the next morning. Marinette woke first, warm and wrapped in her husband’s arms. She lay there silently for a few minutes, before realizing the sunlight outside the window was far brighter than it should have been. Groaning, she looked at her clock, then jostled Adrien. “Hmm?” he murmured.

“Get up, I forgot to set the alarm last night,” Marinette said, kissing Adrien’s cheek. “Our parents will be here in an hour.”

They pulled themselves out of bed, dressed quickly, and went downstairs. Their kids were already in the kitchen, eating and watching the news coverage. “Morning, Mom,” Dani said, as her mother immediately hugged her, Emma and Louis.

“Happy birthday, kids,” Marinette said. “I’m sorry I wasn’t up in time to make breakfast, but I can still-oh, shut that off,” she said, scowling at the news. “Do we really need to start your birthday off with all that?”

“Our birthday’s always going to be on the anniversary of Occupation Day,” Emma said. “We might as well get used to it.”

“You can get used to it next year,” Marinette said. She reached for the remote, but Dani pulled it away.

“We’ll shut it off in a minute, promise,” Dani said quickly, “but we want to see Caroline first.”

“Oh,” Marinette said, surprised. She sat down at the kitchen table. “Is she speaking?”

Louis shook his head. “No, Stephen is, but she’s going to be standing next to him the whole time. They should be on any minute.”

Marinette nodded. “Did she text? How is she?”

“Yeah, she’s good,” Emma said. “She’s almost caught up on everything she missed in time for the new school year.”

Marinette sighed. “No matter how crazy everything gets, there’s always math homework, isn’t there?” she muttered.

“Don’t worry, she likes it,” Dani said. “Don’t ask me why, but when we were liberating London she got ahold of a few textbooks, and reading through them during downtime really put her at ease. It was nice. For me, anyway.”

“I put her at ease too, right?” Louis asked. “Joking around?”

“Flirting, you mean?” Dani leaned back in her chair as Louis’ cheeks went pink. “Yeah, she didn’t hate that.”

“I wasn’t _flirting_ flirting, and anyway I stopped once we made contact with Stephen’s resistance cell.”

“Yeah,” Emma said, “because after that you were too busy flirting with Stephen.”

Louis’ blush deepened. “I like heroes,” he said defensively. “Mask or not, there’s this… it’s an energy thing, you wouldn’t get it.”

Emma and Dani exchanged an eyeroll, but before either could respond a giant cheer rang out from the audience on TV as Prince Stephen appeared and made his way to the podium, Caroline following close behind. The young heroine gave a shy smile to the cameras before assuming her spot a few feet behind Stephen, next to the rest of the royal family.

“She looks so nervous,” Emma said. “It’s… really weird, actually, after getting to know her.”

“She was used to being famous as Pyra,” Adrien said. “Being famous as Caroline is still going to take some getting used to.”

“Stephen sure isn’t having any trouble,” Dani said, as the prince began his prepared speech, about resilience and hope, strength and healing. He spoke of his own experience, of defying Carew and escaping the Order before they could retaliate, of joining the London Resistance, of being inspired by the ordinary people who fought for their city, who won it back even after the Order retreated to London and tripled their defenses. Stephen’s voice was full of emotion, but clear and steady.

“You couldn’t do anything about that giant scar down his face Carew gave him?” Marinette asked Louis.

“I offered,” Louis said, “but by the time we made contact, it had become kind of a symbol. He wanted to keep it.” Louis glanced at the clock hanging on the kitchen wall. “Speaking of healing. Dad, we should get your energy therapy out of the way now, before everyone shows up.”

Adrien looked up, surprised. “Oh,” he said. “Yeah, sure thing.”

 

* * *

 

Before the battle to take down the barrier, Louis had been no stranger to damaged energies. There had been Emma’s, scorched after she’d taken that direct hit from powerful Order magic specifically designed to target her magic. There was Uncle Jonathan’s, covered in thirty year old scars that told a story of festering anger, of abuses born of heartache, of a healing journey that had surely been long and difficult and perhaps not entirely completed. And of course there had been his mother’s, dim and gaunt after months of feeding the parasitic barrier that had trapped them all.

None of them, however, came close to preparing Louis for what his father’s energy looked like after his final Cataclysm.

For starters, it had been just as stripped as Louis’ mother’s energy had been, right after she escaped. Worse, actually, thanks to the extra week Adrien had spent on the island. The quick boost Louis had given his father when they were reunited had been meant to get him through the battle, nothing more. The true healing couldn’t begin until after they’d won. Even if Adrien hadn’t used Cataclysm at all, his recovery would have taken at least a day or two.

Adrien had used Cataclysm, though. Worse, he’d used it on a Lucky Charm. Like yin and yang, creation and destruction, the Ladybug and Black Cat Miraculouses were meant to keep one another in balance. Using destruction directly on creation upset that balance, and it warped Adrien’s energy to do so. And then the Cataclysm had rebounded, attacking Adrien’s energy directly.

Louis had been trying to heal his father ever since.

By now, it had become rote for the both of them. The incense, the pendulums, the spells, Louis had been doing these healing sessions for so long he thought he could probably do them in his sleep. Adrien actually did do them in his sleep, frequently dozing off within the first five minutes while Louis worked. Louis told himself that was a good sign.

About half an hour in, Louis heard voices downstairs, people arriving for the party. He put it out of his mind, keeping his focus on his healing. There was only so far he could push things each day, however, and eventually Louis put a hand to his father’s shoulder and gently shook him awake. “Hey. We’re done for today.”

Adrien blinked, then slowly sat up. “How’d it go?”

“Good,” Louis said. He hesitated. “It would help to watch you… it won’t work, but if you tried to…”

Adrien nodded. This wasn’t the first time Louis had asked. He held his fist out. “Plagg, claws out!” In response, Plagg yawned, curled up on Adrien’s shoulder and closed his eyes. “You don’t have to rub it in,” Adrien muttered wryly. He looked back at his son. “Well?”

“It looked good,” Louis said. “There are parts of your aura activating that were definitely dormant a month ago. Wayzz?”

The green kwami nodded. “It’s promising,” he agreed.

“I think,” Louis said, “that it’s more a question of ‘when’ than ‘if’ at this point.”

Adrien’s face lit up. “Really? That’s great!”

“It might still be a long time,” Louis added quickly, “but you haven’t plateaued, and the metaphysical scarring is still minimal. Plus Esperanza got her abilities back last week, that’s a good sign.”

Adrien grinned. “Bad news for Spain, good news for us, huh?” Louis nodded. “What about your mother? Does this mean it’s safer for her to transform now?”

Louis shook his head. “No, until you can transform, Mom should keep her own transforming to a minimum. It might throw both of your Miraculouses further out of balance otherwise, and that’s not going to help you recover any faster.”

“Ah.” Downstairs, the doorbell rang, and Adrien’s familiar smile returned. “Sounds like people have arrived,” he said. “Shall we?”

“You go ahead, I gotta pack all this stuff up,” Louis said. “I’ll be down in a minute.”

“Can I help?”

Louis shook his head, not meeting his father’s gaze. “It’s all organized in a weird way, it’s faster if I just do it myself.”

“Okay.” Adrien patted his son’s shoulder as he stood to leave. “Thank you.”

“Just doing my job,” Louis said.

Louis took his time putting everything away. He’d never been particularly organized or tidy, but when it came to his Guardian supplies there was something oddly relaxing about placing each item where it belonged. It gave him enough time to switch gears as well, between Louis the Guardian and Louis the teenage superhero.

On his way back, Louis passed the upstairs bathroom, its door ajar, and was surprised to see Dani inside, calmly applying her makeup.

“You’re still getting ready?” Louis asked, stopping in the doorway. “Isn’t everyone here already?”

Dani looked at Louis in the bathroom mirror. “Just ask what you really want to ask,” she said, applying her eyeliner with an unnaturally steady hand as she spoke.

“Right. Um.” Louis hesitated. “How’s Dad… you know, how’s he feeling about, um, the whole, it’s taking longer than I said, and it’s been over half a year, and I still haven’t been able to-”

“Ugh,” Dani interrupted, returning her attention to her own face in the mirror. “That. He feels guilty, like every other stupid superhero in this family.”

Louis frowned. “Guilty? What the hell does he have to feel guilty about?”

“Not a damn thing. You don’t either, by the way, but you’re clearly beating yourself up for not being a miracle worker and getting him his powers back by now.”

“I’m not-”

“And Mom, don’t get me started on Mom, she feels responsible because it was her Lucky Charm that made Dad’s crazy maneuver possible in the first place. Which means Dad feels bad that Mom feels bad, and that she isn’t supposed to transform without him, and he feels guilty about eating up so much of your time and energy, too. You’re all ridiculous.” Dani finished her eye makeup and turned to face her brother.

“It’s my job to heal and protect all the Miraculous holders, including Dad,” Louis said defensively. “If I can’t fix Dad’s energy-”

“If Dad never transforms again,” Dani interrupted calmly, “it’s still a much smaller price than the one he was willing to pay to protect us, to take down the Order. It’s a much smaller price than a lot of other people paid to free Europe, too.”

Louis sighed. “I know,” he said. “Not that I don’t feel guilty about that, too.”

Dani’s expression softened, and she put a hand on her brother’s shoulder. “Yeah, me too,” she said. “But it was worth it. We don’t have to punish ourselves to honor the sacrifices everyone made.” Dani stepped out of the bathroom and nodded towards the stairs. “Come on, I’m pretty sure the cake just arrived.”

 

* * *

 

Within the kitchen, Louis and Dani found their grandparents inspecting a cake of their own creation, a confectionery monstrosity that threatened to topple the kitchen table.

“Louis, Dani!” Sabine’s head poked out from behind a tier, while Tom smiled at them from over the top. “Happy birthday, kids!”

“Wow, that’s… a lot of cake,” Louis said, stunned. “You know we’re keeping it small today, right? Just family?”

“Well, yes,” Sabine said, returning her attention to the cake, “but you three need to eat more, now that you’re running all over the continent-Tom, be a dear and hand me that piping bag, thank you-liberating cities and keeping everyone safe. Why, I think our grocery bills nearly doubled the year your mother started all that, and she mostly stuck to Paris.”

“That was Tikki!” Marinette said defensively, as she pulled a stack of plates down from a cabinet.

“Well partly maybe, sweetheart,” Tom said, “but dinners were still-“

“Oh, shoot,” Sabine said, “I left the good cake server back at the bakery. Emma!” she shouted to the adjoining room. “Could you be a dear and pop over to the patisserie for-“

“Mom, _no_. For the last time, Emma is a superhero, not a pick-up service.” Marinette pulled open a drawer full of various utensils. “The cake server we have here is perfectly fine.” Sabine looked like she disagreed, but she graciously accepted the server all the same.

“You need something, Grandma?” Emma’s head poked up over the back of the couch on the other side of the first floor, where she was currently watching the news coverage with the rest of the family.

“It’s fine, dear!” Sabine called back.

“You sure?” Sabine made a shoo-ing gesture, and Emma turned back around. “Anyway,” she said to her uncle, “if quantic magic can pull off sustainable teleportation I don’t see why some fusion of runic or-”

“Look, I’m not trying to be discouraging,” Jonathan said, “but generations of magical researchers have tried and failed for _centuries_ to engineer safe, convenient, cost-effective teleportation and they never quite-”

“But fusion techniques are still in their infancy, Weil’s Method is only a hundred years old and the Order’s merging of runic and vedic structures was unheard of a year ago.”

“Weil’s Method only works for fusing disciplines which both originate from this layer of our reality, and the quantic realm-”

“I don’t suppose,” Gabriel interrupted dryly, “that the two of you might consider either forestalling this conversation to a later date, or conducting it in a language the rest of us speak?”

Jonathan raised an eyebrow. “What are you so grumpy about?” he asked. “Did they forget to mention you in another piece on the Paris Resistance?”

“Not at all,” Gabriel replied, “I’m merely surprised you have time to sit around watching news broadcasts and boring everyone to death within hearing range. I would have thought you’d have some community service needing to get done.”

“Nope,” Jonathan said, leaning back into the couch, “it’s a national holiday, I got the day off.”

“Lucky us.”

“You said you’d be nice today,” Ferd stage-whispered, before Jonathan could issue a retort.

“I’m nice every day,” Jonathan said, and Ferd laughed.

“...reporting to you live from the Luxembourg Palace, where preparations for tonight’s ceremony are already underway…”

“Ooh,” Dani said, leaning over the back of the couch to get a better look at the news report, “turn it up, we’re going to that. Maybe she’ll mention us.”

“Ceremony?” Ferd asked, as he handed Dani the remote.

“Yeah,” Emma said, “they’re giving Aunt Alya the Legion of Honour.”

“Oh, that’s nice,” Ferd said. “Did you know one of the first recipients of that was a Miraculous holder?”

“Really?”

“...and Ortoli’s barricade was still holding at this time one year ago,” the reporter on screen was saying, as she walked through the hallways of the palace, “but it wasn’t long before Order forces…”

“Mm hmm,” Ferd said. “Holders were mostly chevaliers back then, at least in this part of the world, but…” Ferd trailed off as Jonathan and Dani both turned their heads in perfect unison to look across the room, where Adele was standing and watching the television. She had been leaning against the door frame, but now she stiffened, her arms crossed tight across her chest, a faraway look on her face.

“Gabe,” Jonathan said softly. He nodded towards Adele, and Gabriel gave him a look of gratitude before crossing the room to his wife.

“Adele?” Adele looked at Gabriel, startled, as he put a hand to her shoulder. “Are you alright?”

“Fine,” she said, looking up at him. “Just got a bit lost for a second. I guess my memories of that place are a little fresher than I realized. Really, I’m fine.”

“How many times,” Marinette said, sticking her head out from the kitchen, “do I have to tell you people to shut that thing off? For the next three hours it is my children’s fifteenth birthday and absolutely nothing else, and anybody who goes against that doesn’t get any cake, got it?”

 

* * *

 

“Turn around. Slowly.” Adrien rotated in place as Marinette studied his suit intently, occasionally looking back and forth from it to a few old photographs.

“I’m sure it’s close enough,” Adrien said.

“‘Close enough’ isn’t good enough,” Marinette said, narrowing her eyes at the pawprint detail on her husband’s tie. “It has to be an exact replica of your usual Chat Noir formalwear, or people might suspect you’re not really transformed.”

“People already know you’re retired,” Dani said. Being the only one of her siblings with any eye for fashion, Marinette had asked her to give a second opinion on the recreation. “Would it be so bad if people knew Dad can’t transform?”

“Yes,” Marinette said. “It’s bad enough people know who you kids are. The next time someone thinks about giving you all any trouble, I want them to think they’ll be invoking the full wrath of Ladybug and Chat Noir if they do so.” She gave her husband one more look over, then turned to her daughter. “What do you think?”

“I can’t tell the difference,” Dani said. “If it’s not an exact replica, it’s pretty damn close.”

Marinette nodded slowly. “Good.”

“Hmm.” Adrien held his wrist up and squinted at the sleeve. “Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to stray from the old design a little, make the cuffs wider. I don’t think I can fit Danielle in here as is.”

“Fit Danielle… what? What are you talking about?”

Adrien grinned. “I just think it’d be nice to have an ace up my sleeve, that’s all.”

“Oh my _God_ , Dad,” Dani groaned, “what is wrong with you?”

“Oh come on, admit it, that’s my best one yet. It took me almost a week to come up with that.”

“You are such a dork,” Dani muttered, biting back a smile.

 

* * *

 

“I can’t believe I finally get to go to one of these events with Alya,” Marinette said eagerly, as their limo turned the corner onto the Lahiffe’s street.

“You’ve been to dozens of these galas, and Alya’s covered practically every single one,” Adrien pointed out.

“Yes, true, but now we get to go _together_. No more playing it cool and pretending I don’t know her for the sake of the mask. And getting to go to one that’s in her honor instead of ours, that’ll be a fun change, too, don’t you think?” The five of them lurched slightly as the car slowed and came to a stop in front of the Lahiffe house, and Dani looked up from her phone, narrowing her eyes for a moment at the building.

“We’ll wait in the car,” Dani said. “Mom can go in alone to get them.”

“She can?” Emma asked.

“Yes,” Dani said firmly. She returned her attention to her phone, not elaborating.

Marinette and Adrien exchanged a look of confusion. Shrugging, Marinette got out of the limo and made her way to her best friend’s front door. It was a path she’d walked countless times since Alya and Nino bought the place twelve years ago. She’d helped them move in originally, and again back in January, after they’d retaken Paris and it was safe for Alya and Nino to return home. Marinette had spent weeks helping to clean the place up in her spare time. It had been more or less returned to its former glory, but as she went to ring the doorbell Marinette’s eye was caught by some lingering damage to the wooden door frame.

Scars of the city, Marinette supposed. Even now, months later, she still saw them every day. Marinette knew it would be years before they faded.

Marinette rang the bell, and a few seconds later it flew open. “Aunt Marinette!” Remy exclaimed, beaming up at her.

“Hello Remy,” Marinette said warmly, hugging him. “How are you? Where are your parents?”

“Upstairs getting ready.”

“Really?” Marinette asked, her smile fading as she glanced toward the top of the stairs. “Still?”

“Yeah, they’ve been up there forever, but-no way, is that a _limo_?”

“It’s your mom’s big day, we have to make sure she arrives in style.” Marinette glanced up once again. “Why don’t you go check it out?” she suggested, keeping her voice bright. “Everyone else is waiting, I’ll go get your parents. I’m sure Louis would love to show you all the cool features on the inside.” Remy took off, needing no further encouragement, and Marinette carefully closed the front door before making her way upstairs.

She found Nino standing outside the closed bathroom door, fully dressed and ready to go. He nodded at Marinette as she approached, then knocked. “Alya? Marinette’s here, it’s time to go.”

“I can’t, I told you, why aren’t you listening to me?”

“You’ll be fine,” Nino said. “You’ll feel better once we-”

“I’m hot. Is it hot in here? I think I have a fever.”

“You do not have a fever,” Nino said patiently.

“I’m all sweaty and I can’t breathe. I’m sick. I can’t go.”

“For four months I watched you fearlessly lead a resistance movement against an army of all-powerful wizards, and _this_ is what makes you nervous?” Nino shot Marinette an apologetic look.

“Go,” Marinette said to him softly, putting a hand on his arm. “Remy’s waiting in the car. I’ll talk to her.” Nino gave her a quick hug, then left. Once he was gone, Marinette knocked lightly on the bathroom door. “Alya? Can I come in?”

There was a moment of silence, and then Marinette heard the door unlock. She opened the door and stepped inside. Alya looked stunning in her formal gown, a gown Marinette had personally made for her weeks ago, but she was pale and shaking slightly, sitting on the edge of the bathtub. “Hi, Marinette,” she said miserably.

Marinette sat down next to her. “Hey,” she said. “Do you want to talk about what’s going on?”

“I can’t go.”

“Why not?”

Alya shook her head. “They’re giving me a medal. In front of all those resistance fighters, people who got _hurt_ following me, people who lost loved ones that I couldn’t protect. How am I supposed to accept a medal in front of all of them?”

Marinette sighed. “I understand,” she said. “Believe me, I do. I’ve felt the same way so many times over the years. There were so many times I had to go to one of these things after I thought I’d failed. But eventually, I realized these honors, these ceremonies, they aren’t really for us. They’re for everybody else. People need to do this, Alya, they need to honor what you did. It’s a part of the healing.”

“It’s different for you,” Alya said. “You’re a superhero. I was just a regular person doing what I had to do, barely getting by.”

Marinette hesitated for a moment, then reached for her clutch and pulled out a sheet of paper. “The committee asked me to introduce you tonight,” she said. Alya looked up at her, startled. “I wanted it to be a surprise, but I think you need to read this now.”

Alya took the sheet from Marinette. “The day I met Alya,” she read aloud slowly, “she told me that the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil was for good people to do nothing.” The corners of Alya’s mouth picked up slightly. “You remember that?”

Marinette nodded. “Keep reading.”

Alya’s eyes darted back and forth as she skimmed the page. “You… you were going to give up?”

“I did give up,” Marinette said. “But then you were in trouble, and I remembered what you’d said. Without you, Alya, there never would have been a Ladybug.” Marinette wrapped an arm around Alya’s shoulders and hugged her tightly. “There’s no difference between us,” she told Alya. “Behind the mask, I’ve always been a scared regular person doing what I had to do, just like you were. You are just as much of a hero as I am. You always have been.”

 

* * *

 

“Honey!”

“You’re late,” Honey laughed, as Dani ran across the ballroom floor and up to the hero the second she arrived, her siblings close behind.

“Fashionably, as always.” Dani looked her friend up and down, taking in the black and yellow ball gown. “I love all this tulle, the skirt looks amazing when you turn.” Her eyes drifted back upward. “Hair’s a bit old-fashioned for my taste, but to each her own.”

Grinning, Honey ran a hand over her smooth, domed updo. “Normally I wouldn’t go for it,” she admitted, “but for tonight I couldn’t resist the pun.”

“The pun? What-oh, God,” Dani groaned, “superheroes and their puns, Jesus, you’re as bad as our parents.”

“Technically,” Emma said, as Louis snorted, “we’re not late, we arrived with Aunt Alya and they’re not starting anything without her.”

“Oh, Alya’s here?” Honey asked, her back straightening.

“You cannot possibly still be starstruck around her,” Dani said, rolling her eyes.

“I’m a guest of honor at her medal award ceremony, I’m allowed to fangirl a _little_ ,” Honey said defensively. “Besides, I need to get it all out of my system before my big interview with her next week. Speaking of.” Honey turned to Louis. “I wanted to talk to you about that.”

“Me?” Louis blinked. “Why?”

“Well you’re, you know, the Miraculous boss or Guardian or whatever, and I wanted to-and I’m not asking _permission_ or anything,” Honey added quickly, “but I thought I should give you a heads up that I was planning on mentioning my blindness.”

“Is that the best idea?” Emma asked, frowning. “The  Ladybloggers are already starting to look at most of our close friends, including you. With a lead like that they might-”

“People are going to figure it out eventually anyway,” Honey said. “And I know there’s probably an argument for delaying that as much as possible and never ever sharing any personal information, I know I’m the only one with a secret identity left and that was the whole point of recruiting me in the first place. But you guys don’t know what it’s like to-okay. Last week, right? That bank robbery I stopped, remember?”

“Yeah, you were great,” Louis said. “What about it?”

“Well, not two hours after I single-handedly put those guys in a jail cell,” Honey said, “a complete and total stranger felt compelled to tell me how brave she thought I was for crossing the street by myself. I swear to God, I just about lost my fucking mind.” Dani burst out laughing. “Seriously, Louis, it would mean a lot to so many people I know, it would have meant a lot to me when I was a kid, and my mind’s made up.” Louis stared at her, saying nothing. “Okay?” she finally prompted.

“Do you want to dance?” Louis asked impulsively.

Honey raised an eyebrow. “Is that your weird way of saying you’re fine with it?”

“No-I mean, yes, I’m fine with it,” Louis said, his cheeks turning pink, “but no, just it’s my weird way of saying, ‘Do you want to dance?’”

“I don’t know,” Honey said, her grin slowly returning. “I’m not very good. I tried to learn once. My mom made me take lessons when I was younger, during one of her ‘My Kid Can Do Anything Anybody Else’s Kid Can Do’ phases. It took more than a few bruised toes before I eventually convinced her that plenty of sighted kids can’t dance, either.”

“Like Emma,” Dani said helpfully.

“Thanks, Dani,” Emma said dryly.

“Well, if you haven’t tried dancing since before you got your Miraculous,” Louis said, “you might be surprised at how much you’ve improved. Come on, what’s the worst that could happen?”

“I could break your foot,” Honey said. “Probably pretty easily, since I’m transformed and all.”

“Whatever, I can heal it.”

Honey laughed, and Dani and Emma watched, amused, as the pair walked out onto the dance floor. After a few hesitant twirls Honey’s face lit up, surprised, and then the two were moving effortlessly through the crowd, smiling and talking as they went.

“Jealous?” Dani asked.

Emma rolled her eyes. “Why do you pretend to ask?”

Dani grinned. “Cheer up, maybe Louis will give Henri a Miraculous.”

Emma shook her head. “No, he won’t. I suggested it during the occupation, after Henri found out about us. Louis wasn’t happy about Henri knowing so much, and I figured maybe he could kill two birds with one stone, you know? But Louis says he’s not compatible.”

“Oh,” Dani said, her face falling. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m not,” Emma said.

“Really? You wouldn’t want Henri to have one?”

“Nope,” Emma said immediately, and Dani could tell she meant it. “I like being able to take a break from all of it when we’re together. It’s nice. After the months of the occupation, and then helping liberate London, it’s nice to have someone to go to that isn’t touched by all that the way we are. You never feel that way?”

“Sometimes, I guess,” Dani said. “I can’t really stop using my abilities, though.”

Emma nodded. “I think I’m starting to get why Mom and Dad wanted to keep all this a secret from us until we were older.”

“Yeah?”

“I used to think things would go back to normal, once we defeated the Order,” Emma said, “but normal changed the second we put these things on and it wasn’t ever going to go back. And I love it, I really do, but sometimes I’m just tired, you know?”

Dani shrugged, looking around the room filled with former resistance fighters. “Everyone’s tired,” she said softly.

 

* * *

 

After her speech, from across the giant room, Marinette watched her children. They were surprisingly at ease in this new environment. It had taken years for Marinette to feel comfortable at charity events as Ladybug, but the three teens seemed almost unaware there was anything to feel uncomfortable about. Marinette couldn’t hear them, but she saw Emma say something, and Dani and Louis laughed in response. Louis added something else, and Dani hit his arm playfully, still grinning.

“You okay, bugaboo?” Adrien asked.

Marinette nodded. “They’re really okay, aren’t they? I didn’t know if they would recover so quickly, from everything that’s happened to them in the past year.”

“They’re strong,” Adrien said, picking up Marinette’s hand gently. “Like their mother.”

Marinette smiled and leaned her head on Adrien’s shoulder. “And brave and selfless, like their father.” The two watched their children for a little while in silence. “It still scares me,” Marinette whispered, “how lucky we had to be, for everything to turn out as well as it did. I know that’s my specialty, but still. We were lucky your parents weren’t travelling like mine were, lucky Emma thought to save those pictures of the Order spells before she had any idea she’d be dragged into everything, lucky you didn’t kill yourself, lucky we fell in love again without our memories-”

“That one wasn’t luck,” Adrien interrupted.

“No?” Marinette asked, smiling up at him.

Adrien shook his head and kissed Marinette’s temple. “In a thousand different places, in a thousand different lifetimes, I’d fall in love with you in every single one.”

 

* * *

 

“So you’re really not worried about losing the last secret identity Paris has left?” Emma asked her brother, as the three of them watched Honey congratulate Alya on the other side of the ballroom.

“The quantic identity protection will hold,” Louis said confidently. “Besides…” he trailed off.

“What?” Dani asked.

“It’s just a feeling,” Louis said, “but I think secret identities might be on their way out.”

“Really?” Emma asked, skeptically. “They’re a pretty essential part of superheroes, aren’t they? Isn’t that why you’ve had Honey take the lead on the day-to-day hero stuff?”

“Yeah.” Louis hesitated. “I think superheroes might be on their way out, too. Not right away,” he added, as Dani and Emma looked at him with twin expressions of shock. “Maybe not in your lifetimes, even. But probably mine.”

“Why?” Emma asked. “I know a ton of us were exposed, but a lot of new heroes arose to replace them. Now there are more superheroes in Europe than ever. Doesn’t that make up for our civilian identities being revealed?”

“It could,” Louis said, “but I don’t think it will.”

“So what, the Order won after all?” Dani said angrily. “Everything they did, it’s actually going to rid the world of superheroes?”

Louis shook his head. “The Order won’t ever win,” he said. “They wanted to go backwards. I’m talking about going forwards.”

“Forwards to what?” Emma asked.

“I don’t know,” Louis said. “All I know is, when the last Guardian received my Miraculous, superheroes weren’t around yet. It was partly due to him that the age of superheroes begun. Before that, Miraculous holders were all kinds of things. Knights, shamans, socialites, warlocks, viziers, samurai, you name it. Superheroes arose because the world was changing, and the Miraculouses started manifesting their holders as superheroes in order to keep up. But the world’s changed even more since then. Even just from when Grandma and Grandfather were young heroes, it’s changed so much. Relying on secret identities doesn’t make sense in a world where everyone records everything, where it only takes one blurry photo for hundreds of people on the internet to come together and identify it in a matter of minutes. Superheroes are going to die out.”

Louis’ sisters considered this for a few moments. “Is there anything we can do to stop it?” Emma finally asked.

“That’s the wrong question,” Louis said. “It’s not a bad thing. Superheroes had their place in history, and they’ll still have their place for a while longer, but when the world changes it’s usually for the better.”

“How is it better for the world to lose heroes?” Dani asked.

“You’re not listening,” Louis said impatiently. “Superheroes aren’t the only kind of hero. That’s the whole point of tonight, isn’t it?” The three of them looked back at Alya. “Aunt Alya didn’t need a mask to do any of the things she did.”

“She didn’t need a Miraculous either,” Emma said. “We did, and we needed our secret identities or we never would have been able to keep them.”

Louis shrugged. “I’m not saying we don’t need them now. But you can already see things shifting, if you know what to look for. Miraculouses manifest in whatever form will inspire people the most. And people like Alya, or Prince Stephen, or countless other resistance fighters without superhero identities, they inspired people just as much as we did. In a few generations, masks won’t be the inspiration they once were. That’s okay. When that day comes, I’ll figure out what works instead, and the Miraculouses will be ready.”

Emma and Dani exchanged a look. “Okay,” Emma finally said, turning back to her brother. “So what are you thinking?”

Louis blinked. “I didn’t mean I’d figure it out _now_ ,” he said. “I have, like, decades.”

“No time like the present though, is there?” Emma said. “We might as well start brainstorming now.”

“We? No, it’s a Guardian thing, I don’t need you two to-ow!” Louis rubbed his arm where Dani had just punched it. “What the hell?”

“You can just cut that out right now,” Dani said, “all your mopey loner Guardian bullshit, we’re not in the mood.”

“Yeah,” Emma agreed, “you’re stuck with the two of us for the next seventy years or so, so you might as well get used to us helping you out with all your Guardian stuff. You can be a mopey loner after we die of old age.”

Louis looked at his sisters. “Okay,” he said, grinning. “You win, we’ll figure it out together. But not tonight, okay? For tonight let’s just celebrate along with the rest of Paris.”

“Sounds good,” Dani said. She stood and grabbed Emma’s hand. “Come on, let’s dance, I have a bet with Louis about whether Miraculous magic will finally meet its match in your supernaturally bad sense of rhythm.” Emma rolled her eyes, and grabbed Louis as Dani dragged them both to the dance floor.

The world had changed, and it wasn’t changing back. None of them knew what to expect from the next month, much less the next year, the next decade. But the three of them had been through hell and back together, and so they knew that whatever the future held, they’d face that together, too, and they’d be fine.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [New Heroes](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11100540) by [chatbug](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chatbug/pseuds/chatbug)




End file.
